


Two Lies, Two Spiders

by galaxiebot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Crossover, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Shiro as Spider-Man, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 03:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxiebot/pseuds/galaxiebot
Summary: Shiro has been hiding the fact that he was Spider-Man since he was fifteen. Now, after years of balancing his regular life and superhero duties, he feels like he’s finally got a rhythm with his steady job at the Daily Bugle and the office romance he thought he could never have coming to life. Unfortunately for him, Lance is too sharp, and since Lance is the only reporter Spidey trusts enough to meet and give statements to, Shiro finds himself in a complicated web of lying to his new boyfriend and trying to deal with the people he once saw as friends suddenly turning on him. He’s not sure he’ll make it out of this one with his secret identity or his life intact.Lance, irreparably heartbroken and constantly working, is desperate to try and find a way to get his hopeless crush to notice him. It’s not until he notices his longtime friend and co-worker as a romantic interest that he realizes he had his crush’s attention all along. He might have figured out that Shiro and Spidey were the same person, but now Lance has to navigate helping them both so he doesn’t lose the person he’s so desperately wanted without realizing it. Too bad some of Spidey’s enemies have set their sights on Lance instead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to my team for this Big Bang! Check out the wonderful art they did at mistertiger.tumblr.com and refinedgluttony.tumblr.com!!
> 
> Also a big thanks anaxnet.tumblr.com for being my beta for this, you were a big help!

**Part 1**

**Chapter 1**

Shiro took a deep breath, his eyes scanning the tops of the buildings as he tried to plan this out. His webs would definitely reach, but he was mostly concerned about overestimating the slack he needed so he wouldn’t end up hitting the ground. He levelled his breathing, he didn’t have the time to do all the calculations, so he took a leap of faith on this one.

His heart stopped when his web caught, he’d already jumped, so that was the first step. The air rushed past him, the web swinging in a long arc which resulted in him rocketing towards the ground at a high speed. There was a pounding in his ears, oh yes, his heart, thumping in his chest until he felt the web catch again, about fifteen feet off the ground he swung back up.

“Holy shit it worked.” He looked down at the people below him, many of them just realizing he was there, but he caught sight of a camera, turned up and directed at him. Shiro smiled, shooting it a thumbs up as he swung by and landed both his feet directly on Sandman’s chest, his heels digging in and as he let go of the web he flew forward while Flint started to tumble backwards.

Shiro managed to land on top, his arms flailing as he stood himself up, riding Sandman like a surfboard until they hit the low wall of a fountain, at which time, Shiro felt himself fly off of Flint’s chest. “Shit.”

He fell forward, trying to reach out to catch himself so he wouldn’t fall face first into the water. Luckily for him, Sandman didn’t exactly love getting kicked in the chest, so he did Shiro the courtesy of grabbing his leg before he hit the water and tossing him in the other direction. Not his day exactly, but at least he wasn’t wet. Shiro refocused, whipping another web out to catch Sandman’s face, using it to pull himself back towards Flint.

“Come on Flint,” Shiro pulled him closer, swinging himself around one side to hopefully tie up one of his arms, “what’s gotten into you?”

Sandman roared and tried to grab him again, this time though, Shiro managed to get under his hand. He shot another web into his armpit, twisting himself to pull Sandman backwards. He put just enough force behind it to pull Sandman around and start to wrap him in the webs as Shiro ran in the other direction.

“Hey, hello!” Shiro got around to Sandman’s front and waved a hand in his face. “Are you even listening? Last time I saw you, we were on the same side, what’s going on?”

Sandman struggled, groaning and trying to tear the webs away, but Shiro had gotten around him twice now and he had his strongest webs on him. He took a deep breath, watching Sandman try to pull himself away for a moment. Clearly Shiro wasn’t being listened to, so he tugged on the webs again until he fell over, making quick work of webbing him to the ground.

He walked up to him, looking over Sandman’s face slowly, “come on, come on.”

Shiro heard the sound of Police sirens and he sighed. He leaned down, slapping Sandman as hard as he could. “Wake up Flint,” he glanced at the Police cars, frowning as he watched Sandman just get angrier. “Okay, fine. The Police can have you. I’m sorry.”

He glanced at the cops, waving a bit and then firing off a web. Shiro lifted himself up, flying up onto a lamp post. He took one last look at Sandman and frowned before he hopped up and sailed onto the nearest rooftop. If he wasn’t going to be late for work he might have stuck around to see if Sandman came down, but he would also be dead if he was late again.

Shiro swung into an alleyway, trying to dodge the crowd. He changed, slipping his phone from his pocket to check the time as he got his bag out from where he’d webbed it under a dumpster.

“Karen, can you make sure Flint ends up in an Avenger’s detention facility?” He might actually make it to work on time for once, jogging out of the alley as he flipped from his personal profile to the Spider-Man one.

“Of course,” Karen chirped, A text asking for an interview already, and a message from Tony about something the Avengers might need him in on, an e-mail from Shuri. He had a good week ahead of him.

He swapped his phone back to the other profile, no messages and three calls from Aunt Mei. Shiro could deal with that at lunch, for now, he stopped by the coffee cart in the lobby and made it to his desk at exactly nine o’clock.

“You’re on time for once.” Lance turned his face up to Shiro and smiled as Shiro offered him the cup of coffee over the cubicle wall. “Oh, thank you. You’re too nice to me.”

“I’m sure you were up late too,” Shiro said, “chasing Spidey around and all.”

Lance rolled his eyes, sipping at the coffee. “I swear he lost me on purpose last night in the middle of an interview. Like he got a call and ran off.”

“I’m sure he’ll make it up to you.” Shiro did, in fact, get a call and run off. What could he have done? When Tony is saying the Vulture might have turned back up, there is no way Shiro would ever let anyone follow him into that scenario. Of course, the Vulture wasn’t there, which was a good thing, and then Sandman freaked out this morning. Things got weird fast, as per usual.

“Yeah, he usually does.” Lance hummed and set his head in his hand, sipping at his coffee, “I just wish I knew what he ran off to do. Obviously he didn’t find Sandman until this morning, so it couldn’t have been that.”

Shiro sat on his desk, looking over the wall of the cubicle as Lance started to type. “Think they’re connected in some way?”

“Maybe,” Lance mumbled. Shiro had already lost him to whatever he started to work on, so Shiro sat down and set his coffee next to his monitor, flicking it on and pulling out a stack of notes. He started in on his own work, the crime beat made it super easy for him to keep up, and divert public attention as he needed to. For now, he focused in on some new drug that had gotten so bad so quickly, some company had already started opening clinics to combat it. It wasn’t the most exciting thing for him to write about, but he had plenty of excitement in his life without it coming from work as well.

“Shiro.” Lance popped up and smacked his hands down on the cubicle wall. Shiro jumped, twitching back with his hands up to protect his face. “Sorry, but _Shiro_ , Sandman had gone straight, remember?”

Shiro stared back at Lance, wide eyed and maybe admiring Lance’s eyes while he had the chance. “Y-Yes? Maybe. Wasn’t he with the sinister six?”

“Yes.” Lance held up a and then fluttered through a stack of notes before he set his notebook down in front of Shiro, “but three months ago Spidey told me directly that Sandman had gone straight, he’d even helped him here or there.”

“Yeah,” Shiro said, “okay, yeah I remember that story. You ran it about a day after Sandman and Spider-Man took out that guy, what’s his face.”

“And now all the sudden Sandman is acting weird? And Spidey seemed off this morning taking care of him. He slapped Sandman like he was trying to shake him out of something.” Lance frowned and looked back at his notes, then back at Shiro. “I texted him, but he hasn’t texted me back.”

Lance’s eyes glazed over a bit, looking out over the office slowly until they suddenly widened and Lance sat himself down in his chair hard. Shiro blinked, looking at the wall and then he turned back towards the rest of the room. He felt his chest constrict for a moment, watching Keith walk into the office. Shiro bit his lip, glancing at the sheet of paper sliding under the partition in the cubicle.

_Sorry, don’t want to talk to him._ Shiro read the note over and sighed. There wasn’t much worse than having a crush on someone who had a crush on someone else. It got worse when that someone else was also your childhood best friend.

“Hey Shiro, I have extra tickets for comic con,” Keith started, “well, more I can’t go and Pidge doesn’t want to go without me.”

“Oh yeah? That sucks, what are you going to do with them?” Shiro asked. He had a feeling that he knew what Keith had in mind, but it felt rude not to ask.

“Well I thought you could take them.” Keith settled his arms on Shiro’s cubicle, looking over the wall with his head now on his folded arms. He glanced towards Lance’s cubicle. “You could use a break, and I’m sure you could find someone to go with you.”

Shiro didn’t want to say yes. He made appearances at Comic Con as Spider-Man usually, and having to bring someone with him that he would have to ditch never seemed worth it. He didn’t even meet up with Keith when he went either. It wasn’t worth the risk of someone seeing Keith with Spider-Man in public.

“I, uhm, when is it?” Shiro asked.

“Nope, you’re going, don’t try to get out of it,” Keith said. Shiro pouted, his eyes following Keith’s to Lance’s note, so Shiro promptly set his arm down on it. It probably only looked a little awkward.

“So this wasn’t really an offer?” Shiro asked.

“Nope, take the weekend off Shiro.” Keith pushed himself off the cubicle wall, “I’ll bring the tickets down once I’ve gotten them in the mail. Should be a couple of days.”

“All right,” Shiro mumbled. He pulled out a slip of scrap paper and scribbled on it before sliding it under the cubicle wall.

_It’s fine, I understand_. He set his chin in his hand, looking over his computer screen again. He still needed more information on the new drug, and if he didn’t get it soon, the article would probably get thrown out. Shiro tugged his phone from his pocket, switching it over to the Spider-Man profile and shot Lance a quick text saying he would meet him. Then, as soon as Lance got up and said he had to meet up with Spider-Man, Shiro waved goodbye to him before carefully sneaking out of the building the other way.

* * *

Lance shifted his bag on his shoulder, looking out over the quiet street before he turned down an alleyway. He had his camera in hand, but honestly he probably wouldn’t see any fighting. Spidey never said he’d meet up if it might put Lance in danger, and Lance always got a lecture if he showed up in a spot where Spidey had purposefully tried to prevent him from following. It kind of sucked though, trying to do your job and getting yelled at by the person you needed to document to do that job.

It did feel sort of nice at the same time though. Lance had moved to New York from Florida and left his whole family behind. Having Spidey looking out for him like that felt sort of sweet in a difficult to explain way. It had become part of their weird friendship, well, Lance considered it a friendship, but like having a work friend. Someone you saw at work and didn’t talk to otherwise. Spidey probably kept it that way on purpose.

He cut down the alleyway slowly, his eyes up on the fire escapes as he did it. Lance had hit a point where Spidey had startled him so many times swinging down from a rooftop that he now exclusively looked up for him. Of course, that meant that sometimes he didn’t pay enough attention to things directly in front of him.

By the time Lance felt the hand on his shoulder, knew he couldn’t do anything. His pepper spray, his knife, everything was out of reach because he’d chosen to carry his camera in hand. He usually got shots of Spidey coming down to meet him, pictures that Lance mostly kept for himself, but he loved to take.

“Wallet, phone, camera, now.” The voice felt small and young, far too young. Lance nodded quietly, his hands up as he felt the gun press to his back. He carefully started to move the camera towards the person behind him, trying not to look because he didn’t want to think about some kid holding him up. It might not be a real gun, Lance just didn’t want to think about what it said about the city they lived in if it was.

“Of course, take whatever you want.” Lance barely kept his calm, something about this situation made him mad. On his way to meet Spider-Man and someone just holding him up with a gun when there were so many supervillains running around.

Before Lance could hand over his camera, he heard a sharp noise on one of the fire escapes above them, and the next thing he heard was the startled yell of the kid with the gun. He didn’t shoot, just fell backwards and when Lance turned around his gun had been knocked from his hand and webbed straight to the ground.

“Shit.” The kid scrambled, trying to get himself up, but Spidey bound his hand down to the ground. “Please don’t hurt me, please.”

Spider-Man swung off the fire escape, his feet hitting the ground lightly, purposefully placing himself between Lance and the kid. He shot another web down on the kid’s free hand because he’d been pawing at the webs keeping him to the ground. “Where’d you get this gun?”

The kid stared up at Spider-Man, Lance peering around his friend carefully while the kid panicked on the ground. Spider-Man seemed distracted though, spraying the gun down with his web solvent and picking it up. Lance stared, the eerie blue glow and the strange angular bits that jutted out in all directions of the hand gun made it rather obvious it wasn’t made from technology that could easily be found on Earth.

“Another, another kid at school.” The kid swallowed, his eyes wide with fear and his dark skin glowing slightly in the light. Lance watched Spidey carefully, his demeanor imposing in a way, but he clearly wasn’t about to hurt this kid. “He got it from his uncle. Stole it.”

“What was his name? Do you know his uncle’s name?” Spidey crouched in front of the kid now, getting eye level as the boy only seemed to panic more. Spider-Man stayed perfectly calm though, holding up his hands, “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need his uncle’s name.”

“I-I’m not sure,” the kid said, “his name is Carter. The kid at school, Carter Wilson.”

“Thank you.” Spidey held up the gun briefly “I’m going to hold onto this. If I catch you doing something like this again, I won’t let you go.”

“Y-Yes sir. I promise sir.” The kid watched closely as Spidey sprayed something on the webs that held his hands down to the ground. “Thank you.”

“That’ll take about ten minutes to dissolve the webs, remember what I said. I won’t let you go next time.” Spidey nodded along with the kid for a moment, and as he stood up he turned back to Lance. Lance couldn’t see the smile, but he could tell it was there, and for a moment, Lance felt the distance that the mask put between them. It only lasted for a second, because before he'd gotten through that thought, Spidey slipped an arm around his waist.

"Hold on," Spidey said. He shot a web up into the distance, and before Lance could stop him, they took off towards the rooftops. Lance's head rushed for just a moment, his voice choking into a small yelp as he tried to cling to Spidey's skin-tight suit. For some reason, Lance felt like Spidey had a tighter grip on him than necessary, something about it felt sort of protective. Then again, Spidey did have them hurtling through the air at a high speed now.

They flew a few blocks over, Spidey holding onto Lance as they hopped from building to building until Spidey settled them down on the highest point of an old apartment building with a fire escape cascading down the side. Lance kept himself attached to Spidey for a second, desperate and trying to paw at Spidey as he let him go otherwise his legs might have given out.

"Sorry," Spidey said. He held onto Lance's hip to help stabilize him. "I know he was just a kid, but it wasn't really worth risking keeping you around there. This gun is tech I've been chasing down since I started as Spider-Man."

"It's fine." Lance wobbled for a second, taking a deep breath until he could keep himself on his feet on his own. Spidey only then let go of him. "You handled that well, I think. As well as you could have."

Spidey chuckled, shaking his head. "I always hate dealing with kids. Especially kids who have fallen into something they really don't understand at all." He turned the gun over in his hand, and then he knocked the tip of the gun on the cement wall that lined the roof. Once he'd broken the tip, Spidey made quick work of removing a little, blue glowing something from it and then pocketed that.

"Useless now," Spidey said. He had that look, like he was smiling under his mask again, "Anyway, good to see you Sharpshooter, how're you? Hope you're not too shaken up."

"I'm fine," Lance said, "not the first time I've almost had my camera stolen, wouldn't have been the first time it actually got stolen."

Spidey chuckled, "I could imagine the Sharpshooter reporter running around with such a nice camera could fall into that trap pretty often." Lance sighed, nodding as he agreed again, quietly wishing he could just, push a bit further. Talking like this, it made it feel like Spidey was almost a friend, more of a friend than he actually was, enough of a friend for Lance to maybe pursue the burgeoning crush. Then again, that would probably go about as well as it did with Keith. "What did you want to talk about Sharpshooter?"

Lance smiled a bit at the nic name, "Sandman, this morning."

Spidey promptly clammed up, making a tired noise and shaking his head. "I know, that was weird. He's, he was a friend for a while there."

"So he had gone straight? What do you think caused the attack today?" Lance slipped his notepad from his pocket. Spidey shook his head.

"All I know is that it was highly public," Spidey said, "and he didn't seem to even recognize me. He wasn't himself." He crossed his arms, covering the spider on his chest as he hunched his shoulder up. If Lance didn't know better, he might have said that Spidey looked a little scared about it. "Like he'd been, drugged, or something."

"Drugged?" Lance stopped writing, slipping his phone from his pocket instead. He set it down on the ledge with the recording going. "Are you sure?"

"No, it's just a hunch." Spidey ran a hand over the top of his head, shifting on his feet and then looked at the phone. "Listen, you should tread lightly with this one. Don't risk anyone getting that recording."  
"Got it." Lance paused to look at the phone and then stopped taking notes all together. "This has you shaken, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." Spidey unfolded his arms and sighed, "yeah, it really does."

"I have strings I can pull—"

Spidey shook his head quick. "No, no do not look into this on your own. I know you never listen to me about it, but please Lance."

Lance jerked a bit, the shock of Spidey using his name rang in his ears for a moment. "Okay," Lance said, "I won't. I promise."

"Thank you." Spidey shuffled his feet again and rubbed one of his arms idly for a second. If it wasn't for the seriousness of the moment, Lance might have found it funny. It looked like something he’d seen Shiro do.

Lance gently touched his phone, turning off the recording and slipping it back into his pocket. “Off the record, are you going to be okay?”

Spidey froze for a moment. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” He laughed and relaxed, shaking off whatever he’d been holding onto, “I just, it’s hard to see a friend like that. Suddenly not knowing who you are, like they’re looking through you. I mean, imagine a co-worker you’ve known for a good deal of time just suddenly not remembering you.”

Lance couldn’t really imagine, but he could say he’d probably be upset if he showed up one day and Shiro started to act like he didn’t exist. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be great.” Lance laughed softly, “you just made all of my problems seem real small. That has to be hard, I’m sorry.”

“Oh I mean.” Spidey rubbed the side of his neck, rolling his head to one side as he seemed to back-pedal a bit. “It is hard. But everyone has things they have to deal with. Are you okay, Sharpshooter? You don’t need any help with the mob, right?”

Lance scoffed, the noise rolling into a laugh. “No, I, unfortunately, was talking about my relationship problems. I’m not in any trouble.”

“Good, you should try to keep it that way.” Spidey leaned on the wall next to him, his arms folded over his chest as he seemed to smile at Lance again. Lance liked this, he liked it a lot, and as much as he might have had a crush on Keith at some point that was hopeless and stupid, the crush he had on Spidey had always been worse. He just did a better job of controlling the crush he had on Spidey. “What happened? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Oh, uh.” Lance sputtered and it suddenly felt like he was spending some time with a friend rather than talking to Spidey. It made him sort of nervous in a way he never had been before, at least not around Spider-Man, his star-struck thing had ebbed into passive admiration and a soft spot in his heart for Spidey. This was new. “I just got rejected by this guy Keith. I’m not even that upset, honestly, I mean, I guess it made me feel pretty lonely. But I feel more bad for Shiro, he sits next to me and he’s really sweet, but he and Keith are close and I think Shiro feels guilty anytime Keith comes around to see him since our desks are so close.”

Spidey didn’t say anything, for a moment, if Lance didn’t know better, it almost seemed like Lance had stunned him into silence. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense considering it was a completely mundane story, and for a second, Lance thought Spidey might be listening to something in his ear again. Like that time he’d suddenly started talking to someone named Karen and ran off without much of a word other than an apology.

“Maybe you should tell him?” Spidey sort of snapped to life, his voice sounded off for a second. “Shiro, I mean. That you’re not uncomfortable with him having his friend around.”

Lance blinked and hummed, “I probably should. Shiro doesn’t really deserve to feel bad for spending time with Keith and he’s always so nice to me. I just wish it wasn’t so awkward.”

“Yeah, offices kind of create that atmosphere, huh?” Spidey chuckled and then he froze solid for a moment. Lance gave him a knowing look and smiled.

“Huh, I always kind of wondered if you had a day job,” Lance said, “I’m surprised you can keep up with something like that.”

Spidey deflated and looked around. They were on the roof of a tall building, no one could really see them and no one could hear them. “I don’t get much sleep,” Spidey said, “but this also doesn’t really pay.”

He gestured to himself and Lance laughed. “I can’t imagine it would,” Lance said. “You’re not worried your co-workers will figure it out?”

“I don’t know. I’m really only close with one or two of them, and I have to admit, I’m a bit caught in the middle of them. They are,” Spidey paused, searching for the right words for a moment. “Well, I guess they were sort of in the situation you’re in. One rejected the other, and I’m just kind of in the middle. I don’t really know how to make my friend feel better about it either. They’re distracted though, not paying attention to me.”

“Oh I see.” Lance shrugged and thought for a moment, “well, since I’m in the same position as your friend. I guess I’d like someone to reach out to me? Maybe invite them to do something with you so they won’t feel so alone. Friends are good for that.”

Spidey chuckled, “yeah, maybe I’ll do that. If I can find the time I will.”

“Thanks for talking to me,” Lance said, “you actually made me feel better. Sometimes just someone asking is a lot too.” He slipped his notepad from his pocket and wrote out his address quickly. This was sort of a bold thing to do, he knew that Spider-Man really couldn’t have friends, not in the way that Lance had friends. He held the paper out to Spidey anyway. “Here, in case you ever need to talk or even if you need food late at night. I’m always up and I’ll cook for anyone and I’ll listen to office gossip whenever you want.”

“Oh.” Spidey, a little surprised took the piece of paper and Lance watched the eyes of his suit seem to focus and take a picture of it. “Thank you, Sharpshooter. I really appreciate that, really.”

“Of course. I’m sure you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders Spidey,” Lance said, “don’t forget that there are people here to support you.”

Spidey laughed a bit, but it was tight and awkward. He seemed to tense up, and for a moment, Lance thought to himself that he would never see Spidey in his apartment. “Thanks Lance,” Spidey said, “and hey, don’t get yourself too down. I know for a fact there are people out there who wouldn’t have rejected you if they’d been given the chance.”

Lance’s face got hot, and he watched as Spidey, rather awkwardly, excused himself and lept over the side of the building as soon as it was socially appropriate to do so. Sitting down for a second on the roof, Lance had to let himself reorient with the world. If he was right, Spidey had just maybe implied that _he_ would have liked to go out with Lance. That was what that meant, right? Lance’s head started to spin for a second, and after about five minutes of being a hopeless rag doll, he got up, dusted himself off, and headed for his apartment.

He sent a single text to Spidey saying, “I’ll be up late if you need me.”

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Shiro sat himself down in the corner of the nearest alley and slid down the wall. He slipped his mask off, hyperventilating as Karen reminded him that his heart beat had gotten rather fast. Shiro, staring at the mask in his hands, his fingers shaking as he tried to comprehend what he’d just done. He knew the mask made him more willing to say things he couldn’t say in his everyday life, but confessing a crush to someone he knew in both his Shiro life and his Spider-Man life couldn’t end well.

He slipped his mask back on once he felt like he could breathe and took a few good breaths before he started to talk. “Karen, why did I do that?”

“Because you do like him, don’t you?” Karen’s voice was as resolute and firm as ever. She had always been encouraging towards all of Shiro’s crushes, confusions, and impulses, but this time he felt like maybe she wasn’t going to give him good advice. “He sent you a text, do you want to hear it?”

A new wave of panic washed over him. “I guess I have to.”

“The text says, ‘I’ll be up late if you need me.’ That sounds like an invitation,” Karen said. Shiro groaned and rubbed his face through his mask.

“It _is_ an invitation, Karen. That’s what I’m worried about,” Shiro said, “I can’t date him as Shiro if I’m with him as Spider-Man. And being with him as Spider-Man will put him in a lot of danger.”

“I guess that is rather difficult.” Karen’s voice trailed off in a way that meant Shiro knew what was coming. “After doing a quick search, I think it might be best for you to set him straight. You might be able to pick up the pieces after, as his friend, Shiro.”

Shiro sighed, “Karen, I’m far too awkward for that.” He stood up though, going about his normal nightly routine. It only kept him out until about one if he didn’t run into anything crazy, and lucky for him he didn’t.

It was about 1:15 when he scaled the wall of Lance’s building, counting the windows so he could figure out which was Lance’s. Luckily, he didn’t live in a very large building, so Shiro could find the back window on the third floor where no one would see him tapping on it and waiting for Lance to come let him in. He might have purposefully tapped extra quietly though, just in case he could still avoid this situation entirely.

Much to Shiro’s surprise though, Lance was wide awake and at the window looking a touch confused until he saw Shiro, well, Spidey waving at him. Lance unlocked the window and pulled it up in an easy motion. “Fancy meeting you here,” Lance said, a smile on his face that was so sweet Shiro might be thinking about it for the next month. He had already shut off the cameras in his suit, making sure it wasn’t recording or anything to ensure Lance would have no ties back to Spidey if something happened, but boy did Shiro wish he could sneak a picture of the way Lance looked at Spidey.

“Hi.” Shiro, a little breathless from the night in general and being vaguely emotionally compromised post his first conversation with Lance that evening. “I’m surprised you’re still awake.”

Lance shrugged, leading Shiro out of a small three season room at the back of Lance’s apartment and into the kitchen, once he’d climbed into the window, of course. “I waited since I told you I’d be here. Plus I started prepping freezer meals because I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and bought a month’s worth of food.”

Shiro looked around the kitchen as Lance placed a couple things into the sink. There was a small stack of disposable tins with paper lids, all of which had names and some sort of cooking instructions on them. “Wow, I might have to steal this idea,” Shiro said.

“I got it from pintrest,” Lance said, “I can’t believe you don’t do stuff like this already with the amount your working Spidey.”

“Uh.” Shiro had to work through the shock of Lance calling him Spidey for a second, he suddenly hit the ground and remembered why he was there in the first place. Then Lance turned around and Shiro forgot it all again. “I’m, not a very good cook.”

“Oh, is that all,” Lance laughed, “well, like I said if you ever need food in the middle of the night, I’m usually up.”

Shiro smiled, his shoulder hunching almost bashfully, he could feel his normal mannerisms coming through. “Thank you, I appreciate the thought.”

“Have you eaten tonight?” Lance asked. His face looked genuinely concerned, and he smiled when Shiro said he had eaten already. “Good, though, I’m a little curious then why you came by. Did you want to talk?”

“Sort of.” Shiro clammed up, Lance had been on the other side of a kitchen island and now he’d somehow made his way into Shiro’s personal space without Shiro really noticing it was happening until it was too late. “Well, about what I said earlier. I’m just, Lance we–”

Lance stepped a little bit closer to Shiro, and with the motion Shiro felt Lance’s hand on his hip. “Listen,” Lance said, “I’m not delusional. I know you wouldn’t put me in danger like that.”

“Yes, exactly,” Shiro said. Lance’s hand was sliding up his side, and Shiro was starting to lose his mind a bit. Nothing anyone had ever taught him–not Cap, not Tony, not Karen, not Thor–could ever have prepared him for this situation. Well, maybe Thor.

“But, remember when I said it might be nice, for a friend to reach out?” Lance asked. Shiro started to put the pieces together, “that it could sometimes make someone feel less lonely?”

Shiro swallowed, “I can’t take my mask off.”

Lance chuckled, and Shiro felt his lips on his neck through his suit, “that’s fine, can you pull it up?”

The panic started to wash off Shiro. Suddenly it was all replaced with excitement, even if morally he wasn’t really sure if it was okay to sleep with Lance while Lance was only seeing Spidey. Shiro folded his mask up anyway, and the moment he felt Lance’s lips on his he didn’t really care how potentially suspect this was, or if Lance would be mad at him for it later. Shiro could deal with that later. For now, his hands found their way to Lance’s hips and then slid down his thigh as Lance tried to get a leg around his waist.

“Bedroom?” Shiro breathed, his lips had travelled down Lance’s neck and found home against his skin. He was leaving marks, marks that for the next week were going to plague him knowing that he’d left them but he’d never get to admit it to anyone but himself.

“That way, second door on the right.” Lance pointed blindly, and Shiro made it a point to slide his hands under Lance’s thighs and guid his legs around his own waist so that Shiro could carry him back to Lance’s bedroom. Lance didn’t seem to mind one bit, his legs locking behind Shiro and his mouth on Shiro’s neck, gently trying to tug the suit further down.

Shiro pressed Lance back onto the bed, leaning over him and finding his way back to Lance’s skin. “Lance, you really can not take my mask off.”

“I promise I won’t.” Lance seemed pretty eager to agree to anything so long as it meant he could keep grinding on Shiro the way he was, and honestly Shiro was inclined to feel much the same. “There’s, I have a blindfold in my bedside table. If that would make you feel better.”

“Webbing your hands to the headboard sounds like a better idea,” Shiro mumbled. He did it entirely for the wide eyed and surprisingly excited look he knew he’d get from Lance, he just had a feeling it would work. “I’m kidding,” Shiro said, his teeth on Lance’s collarbone now that he’d pushed his shirt out of the way, “grab the blindfold.”

Lance groaned, shifting himself up on the bed and fumbling through the bedside table, pausing only to set a bottle of lube on it before he pulled out the blindfold. He slipped it on, his hands immediately returning to trying to get Shiro’s suit off. “How does this work?”

“Not telling.” Shiro chuckled, carefully sliding the blindfold over Lance’s eyes and securing it. He then touched the spider on the front of his suit, causing it to go limp on his frame. He took it off, now down to just his boxers, but it was better than being confined to the suit.

“You just hit the spider on the front didn’t you?” Lance asked.

“Shush,” Shiro mumbled and slipped Lance’s shirt off. Lance laughed, pulling Shiro into another kiss, carefully because he couldn’t actually see what he was doing.

“I guessed right, didn’t I?” Lance asked, his lips trailing down Shiro’s jaw now.

“I said shush.” Shiro chuckled, rolling his hips against Lance’s and earning himself a nice, solid moan spilling from Lance’s lips.

“Y-Yes Spidey.” Lance stammered his next couple words as Shiro made it a point to keep his hips rolling at a nice, steady pace while he held Lance still in his hands. He didn’t even have Lance’s pants off yet and he felt like he was being shown something more beautiful than Shiro could have imagined before. It was going to hit hard when he was at home alone that this was just a one-night stand, right now, Shiro wanted this to be the rest of his life.

* * *

Lance woke to the smell of Spidey in his bed and the blindfold still securely over his eyes. He smiled, running his fingers over the empty bed sheets for a moment as he slipped the blindfold off. There was a note, folded neatly next to him with ‘Sharpshooter’ written on the front. Lance smiled, rubbing the note with his fingertips for a moment as he got reaccustomed with being awake. He was most certainly going to be late to work, but he’d be fine. It was a rare occasion he was late.

The note was just an apology for having to ditch. Lance appreciated it, but it definitely wasn’t necessary, especially since he’d had a thoroughly good time with Spidey the night before, he’d even managed to convince him to take the mask off so Lance could tug on his hair. Lance couldn’t help but note just how familiar Spidey’s handwriting looked to him. He was pretty sure he’d seen it before. Maybe he was wrong. Either way, Lance was happy Spidey had grown more trusting as the night had gone on, and Lance really couldn’t wait to see him again, even if it was probably never going to be in that context a second time.

As much as Lance had a crush on Spidey, somehow sleeping with him and all the caution and care to not revealing his identity to Lance had dragged Lance into reality. He couldn’t be with Spidey, and more so, he didn’t want to be with Spidey. Funny how a one night stand could teach that to you.

Lance showered and made himself breakfast, just toast with jam and cheese on it before he swiped one of the freezer meals he’d made the night before. He paused at the freezer though, chuckling a bit to himself before Spidey had obviously swiped one before he’d left. Lance didn’t really mind, he actually found it sort of endearing. He poke through them all and determined that it had been a lasagna.

“I’ll have to ask if he liked it,” Lance mumbled. He shut the door to the freezer and set out for the office in an uber so he wouldn’t have to walk to the subway. It wasn’t the quickest ride, but listening to music and quietly scrolling through news feeds made things better. No new Spidey sightings overnight, which sort of made Lance giggle to himself because he knew rather personally why there hadn’t been any. Spidey had chosen to come be with him once he knew nothing was going on in the city, and that made Lance’s skin feel electric.

He wandered into the office surprised to find that Shiro hadn’t beaten him there. Lance set the cup of coffee he’d bought for him down on Shiro’s desk and frowned before he sat down. Honestly, Lance was sort of worried if Shiro was this late coming in, usually he was just a touch late at all times, but it was bordering on thirty minutes now. Checking his phone as he set it on his desk, Lance didn’t have any texts saying Shiro was staying home.

Lance glanced over the wall of the cubicle, and about then Shiro ran into the room looking disheveled and tired, but not upset about it. In fact, despite his surprisingly messy hair and the fact that he hadn’t actually managed to get his tie all the way on yet, Shiro looked pretty bright eyed and bushy tailed. For a moment, Lance was skeptical he’d just pounded a five hour energy or something, but once he was closer, Lance could see the distinct hickey on his neck and the shy flush on his cheeks when he realized Lance was looking. Oddly enough, Lance only stared because he was pretty sure he left a hickey in that same spot on Spidey last night. At least, they’d both obviously had a good time.

“Hey Shiro.” Lance tried to keep his face looking not quite as curious as he actually was. Shiro still got redder when Lance glanced at the hickey again, smirking at him. Lance had been savvy enough to cover all of his with a bit of concealer and foundation, so this was ultimately a little funny. “Have a good night?”

Shiro stumbled, looking away and then promptly sitting in his chair so that Lance was looking down at him instead of up. It made it easier for Shiro to break eye contact, it was a tactic he seemed to use often. Honestly, it was pretty cute whenever he did it. “Yeah, yeah, I mean. It was good.”

“Really? Looks like it was really good.” Lance kept his smirk, and Shiro turned redder than a highschool girl being complimented. He glanced up at Lance, and for a moment, he seemed to be looking at Lance’s neck, as if he’d known something was there. Lance was pretty sure he’d gotten all the marks Spidey left on him covered, but Shiro might have just been looking at Lance’s neck because he knew Lance was looking at his.

“Okay, okay.” Shiro gave him a bashful look and then turned back to his computer, smiling shyly, “it was pretty great. But I don’t think I’m seeing him again.”

Lance blinked for a moment, Shiro didn’t look sad per say, but there as an odd nostalgia in the way he said it. Something that Lance caught as plain strange. “Awe, why not?”

“Just not going to work.” Shiro said, “he was nice though.”

“Hm, well, I hope you’re not too torn up about it.” Lance watched Shiro shake his head and then when he looked up, Lance caught his eyes dart to Lance’s neck again.

“No, I’m, I’m not.” Shiro smiled sweetly at Lance, “thank you for asking and thanks for the coffee.”

“Of course. Hope it’s not cold since you got in so late.” Lance’s voice sort of caught in his throat oddly. Had he ever seen Shiro look at him so tenderly? Better yet, Lance had never put Shiro and ‘dates guys’ together until just now, but Shiro had distinctly said ‘he’ that whole time. He slid back down into his seat, staring at his computer for moment, that blooming feeling in his chest. “Oh no,” he mumbled. There was a sudden panic running up his arms, because he wasn’t quite sure when it had developed, but he could feel that nervousness he always felt when he was starting to get a crush on someone creep into his stomach. God, he needed to talk to his therapist about this habit sometime.

He jumped a bit when a sheet of paper slipped under the wall between his and Shiro’s desk, a little note that just said, _Want to get lunch today?_

Lance frowned, looking it over for a moment and then it clicked. It was Shiro’s handwriting that Spidey’s reminded him of. Honestly, Lance hadn’t thought about it, but they were sort of similar people. Especially getting to know Spidey a bit more as a person than a hero, he was sweet and sharp like Shiro. A little smile grew on his face, maybe Lacne hadn’t been seeing something he really should have been paying attention to.

He wrote a _yes_ on the paper with a little smiley face and passed it back. Shiro didn’t respond, both of them deep in their writing for the next few hours. At about one, Shiro stood up and yawned, leaning over the cubicle wall to look at Lance’s computer.

“Wherever we go, can it be a place that sells coffee?” Shiro looked rather tired now, a pair of glasses on his face that made him look more distinguished most of the time, but with the tired eyes and messy hair, he really just looked like he belonged lounging in a sweater in a mountain living magazine.

Lance was starting to feel how late he was up too though. “Yes please,” Lance said, “there’s that Cuban cafe around the corner. They have really good coffee.”

“That sounds good to me.” Shiro had his head on his arms, “that’s the one that has empanadas right?”

“Yeah, they’re not as good as my mom’s though.” Lance picked up his wallet and slipped it into his pocket, followed by his phone.

Shiro, looking dazed and out of it, “you should make them sometime.”

“I could do that.” Lacne walked around the cubicle, and Shiro seemed to realize what he’d said, waving his hand and shaking his head.

“Sorry, you by no means have to make me empanadas.” Shiro followed Lance they made their way towards the elevators with a bit of a laugh.

“It’s fine, I don’t mind cooking,” Lance smiled, “especially not for you. You constantly eat street meat and hot dogs.”

Shiro frowned, “I love street meat though.” He slipped his glasses off and stuck them in the pocket of his shirt, smiling at Lance again. “But youre lasagna was good, I’d bet you’re a pretty good cook.”

Lance blinked for a moment, thinking to himself. “When did I feed you lasagna?”

Shiro blinked back for a good second, “didn’t you bring lasagna to the christmas party?”

“No, I brought tamales to the Christmas party.” Lance wracked his brain for a minute, trying to remember bringing a lasagna anywhere near Shiro. “Actually, was there even a lasagna at the Christmas party?”

“I’m pretty sure there was, maybe someone else made it?” Shiro, for just a second, looked jittery. Lance didn’t pay it any mind, still trying to figure out if he’d ever made lasagna for the office. It sounded like something he would do if he was being honest, but he really couldn’t remember doing it. Maybe he’d make one for the next Christmas party in that case.

“Yeah, maybe.” Lance lead Shiro out onto the street, turning towards the Cuban cafe. “Anyway, glad you liked whoever’s lasagna that was.”

Shiro laughed, looking more relieved than Lance really understood. Maybe he’d just been worried Lance would get offended for Shiro mixing up what he brought to that party? That seemed weird, but poor Shiro could be a pretty awkward dude, though.

They sat down in a corner, both of them ordering the biggest coffees they could, although, Lance got espresso and Shiro got straight coffee. Either way, they both got quiet, reading the menu and sipping at their coffee. Lance was taking advantage of having his menu up to peak at Shiro, because he could and Shiro looked pretty cute with the coffee mug in hand and his focus on the menu. Lance really had missed something important here, he just couldn’t believe he’d never really paid attention to Shiro’s looks. This is what he got for getting crushes so quick, he had one on Keith the first day he walked into the office and he met Shiro second.

Shiro caught him looking, tilting his head and smiling a bit. “What?”

Lance could feel his face get hot and he promptly set down his coffee so he wouldn’t overheat. “Nothing, sorry.” He shook his head, “I zoned out.”

“Guess we’re both tired,” Shiro said. Lance was then saved by the arrival of the server, both of them putting in their orders since they only had an hour for lunch. Of course, this also meant that the menus were gone and neither had anything to hide behind.

They managed to chat, small talk that didn’t really amount to anything other than what they were each currently investigating. Lance left out a lot of the stuff that could compromise Spidey. He never knew who was listening after all, though he would have trusted Shiro with that information.

As soon as they got their food though, Shiro seemed to get nervous again. Lance naturally started to be a little gentler with him. He rather liked Shiro as a person, and he’d caught onto the ebb and flow of Shiro’s nerves over the years they’d been working together, so he tried his best not to make Shiro more nervous when he already was. Although, Lance really didn’t expect Shiro’s nerves to lead into him clumsily trying to ask Lance something.

“...I mean, I have two tickets, so I thought maybe you’d like to go. Since we both like comics.” Shiro kept rambling sort of, probably because Lance was sitting there stunned into submission. This wasn’t direct at all, but Shiro seemed to be asking Lance out, and Lance’s fresh rose-colored crush didn’t know how to handle it. How had he not noticed Shiro until just now? “Though,” Shiro continued, “I should say that I could only get a room with one bed in it, so we’d have to share.”

“I don’t mind sharing a bed.” Lance wasn’t really conscious yet, his brain was just on auto-pilot but it definitely knew what he wanted. “I’d like to go with you.”

Shiro sputtered out for a second, and for a second, Lance could see that ‘holy shit it worked’ look on his face and he had to do everything in his power to stop himself from smiling at Shiro like a fool. It didn’t work. Shiro smiled back at least.

“Really?” Shiro shook his head slightly, “I mean, if you’re really okay sharing the hotel room and everything. I’d like to have someone there with me.”

Lance smiled, “when is it again? I will definitely go with you. I don’t mind clearing my schedule.” He knew that maybe this wasn’t exactly Shiro asking him out. Lance just hoped he was right in thinking it was Shiro’s way of asking him out or even trying to get to know Lance better. Either way, they’d be alone in a hotel room for a few days and hopefully Lance could get a read on if Shiro might be interested in dating Lance if that hadn’t been his intention inviting him in the first place.

* * *

“Okay,” Shiro said, swinging himself up onto a high fire escape and then flinging himself over the wall to get on the roof. “So what if I contact the people running the convention and explain that the Avengers need me? They wouldn’t know, right?”

“I don’t think you should lie,” Karen said, “and it has been confirmed that Tony will be attending.”

Shiro groaned, “oh man, Tony might be there? That’s the last thing I need.”

“You know he is only ever trying to show he cares, even if it embarasses you.” Karen brought up a photo of Shiro and Tony with their arms flung around each other’s shoulders at the Avengers compound upstate.

“I know, I know. I love Tony, you know that.” Shiro walked across the roof and settled himself down on one of the corners, looking out over the city and sighed. “But what I mean is really, I don’t need him trying to occupy my time while I am also trying to sneak away from Lance long enough for the meet and greet without him catching on that _I’m_ Spider-Man.”

“I see.” Karen said, and she dropped off, which meant she was doing some sort of search. “Well, common lies used to cheat on partners are–”

“No, no,” Shiro waved his hands, “wrong, search, bad search. Karen, I’m not cheating on Lance.”

“Well, you are trying to lie to him, right?” Karen asked. Shiro groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

“Yes, okay. But lying to cheat on someone is a lot different than trying to shield them from the potential wrath of being associated with your secret identity.” Shiro started to rub small circles into his temples, trying to solve the puzzle in his head.

“Maybe you should ask Tony? He might have some advice.” Karen must have been reprogrammed by Tony the last time Shrio brought them his suit. She clearly had a bias she didn’t have before.

“Tony has never had a secret identity, and he and Pepper have always been out in the open for everyone to see,” Shiro said, “though, you have a decent idea. Maybe Hawkeye would have some decent advice? But his family has always known who he is.”

“I can not find a database of superheroes with secret identities,” Karen said, “but perhaps doing your best to be as honest as you can while still concealing yourself is a good place to start.”

Shiro perked up. “Oh, so like, include some truth in the lie? That’s a good idea too.”

“Thank you, I got it from the search on cheating,” Karen said.

“You know, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all.” Shiro chuckled and stood up, shooting his web across the way and starting to fly through the alleyways again. Karen kept chatting about ideas on how to divert Lance’s attention, but ultimately, Shiro settled on just telling him he had food poisoning. It would be better than lying outright.

Lance and him were in a good place though. Since Shiro had asked him to go with him to comic con they’d been on the same wavelength, spending a lot of time together, and even pretty often Shiro felt like Lance was actually returning his affections. As subtle as they were for now, Lance smiled back and Shiro caught him looking and Lance brought him his favorite coffee here or there and it felt like they constantly ate lunch together. It was all just so nice, thinking about it made Shiro’s stomach flutter.

Also, Lance had suddenly dropped a lot of the attention he used to give Spidey in favor of paying it to Shiro instead, which if Shiro was being honest, felt really, really nice. For one thing, Shiro never thought he’d beat out Spidey in Lance’s eyes. Even before he’d kind of figured out there might be an opportunity there, and if he was being honest, he hadn’t. He had invited Lance to Comic con because Lance had mentioned wanting a friend to reach out, but either way, he’d done something right. But Lance seemed to be choosing Shiro over Spidey, and even if Shiro hadn’t had a hopeless crush on Lance already, that felt like a huge win. Lance could have had the super hero, instead he wanted the person under the mask. Even if Lance didn’t know it.

Shiro, giddy and a little tired, decided to call it a night a little bit early that day. Karen seemed to approve. Of course, nothing was ever that easy. As soon as he’d made that decision, a report cut in from Hawkeye looking for support. Shiro went without a second thought, finding Black Cat screeching and throwing everything she had at Hawkeye.

Not a single one of his arrows hit, and as Shiro creeped onto the scene, he just hoped he could get her before she turned her probability manipulation on him. He clung to the ceiling, Hawkeye catching his eyes for a moment before he continued to try to distract her. Clint seemed determined to try to talk to Felicia, but she didn’t seem to do anything but scream. Shiro took that as a signal to subdue and nothing more, not unless Hawkeye was in serious danger, which he rarely was.

“Karen, I need those kettlebell webs,” Shiro said.

Shiro managed to get just about above Black Cat, an arrow whizzing past him and into the roof because it was about all Hawkeye could do to keep her busy. He pulled back and slung a web at her, catching her left side with sticky, heavy webs that weighed her down as she tried to throw more at Hawkeye. She didn’t even look up at Shiro until she fully registered ust what was on her.

He felt a rafter crack under his foot, and with a quick move, he slung a web across the way to catch himself before he fell. This left an opening for Hawkeye though, shooting a netting arrow at her and hitting his mark for the first time thanks to Black Cat’s powers. Between the net and the weighted webs, she was stuck to the ground, but for good measure, Shiro wrapped her in another web as Hawkeye made a break for some of the things she’d gotten from the Tinkerer, starting with the earrings that made her stronger.

“Black Cat, are you alright?” Shiro knelt down near her, but she didn’t really look at him. Instead she screamed and struggled, incoherent blathering coming from her mouth just as he’d run across with Sandman before her. “Felicia, hello, it’s me Spidey.”

“I don’t think it’s worth it,” Clint said. Shir glanced back at him and pulled his mask up so Clint could read his lips.

“What do you think is wrong?” Shiro asked. Clint shrugged, his face looked grim and he shook his head slowly.

“I don’t know. We have her in custody though,” Hawkeye rubbed the back of his head and sighed, “I’m going to take her upstate. I think maybe someone there can do a better job of helping her.”

“Is that what happened with Sandman the other day?” Shiro looked at his wrists, and touched the controls on his webs, switching to something that would last longer so Hawkeye could keep her restrained.

“Don’t know,” Hawkeye said, “if he was like this, I hope so.”

Shiro ground his teeth a bit and frowned, adding to the webbing with the longer lasting stuff. “Are you good on your own from here?”

“Yeah,” Clint carefully hoisted Black Cat over his shoulder and frowned again as he called transport. He told Shiro to go home, so Shiro did, quietly thinking about how Felicia hadn’t even looked at him, she hadn’t seen him even when Shiro got close to her face.

Pulling his mask down, he tried to shake off the feeling, swinging his way towards home in the now pouring rain. It felt wrong, but at least he knew that Hawkeye would take good care of her. Shiro just hoped someone at the Avengers compound could actually help her. He hung his suit to dry when he got home and settled himself into bed for a night of not much sleep. At least he’d be at comic con with Lance soon

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Lance stretched his arms out in front of him, yawning softly as he stood just outside his apartment door waiting for Shiro. Honestly, he wouldn’t be particularly surprised if Shiro was late since he was always late to work, but to his surprise, Shiro showed up right on time. His hair was disheveled and he looked like he might have just rolled out of bed and onto the subway to get there, but he was in fact, on time.

“I was going to stop for coffee, but I was running late.” Shiro had a duffel bag over his shoulder, and Lance sort of had to stop to appreciate getting to see Shiro in jeans and a t-shirt. Granted Shiro never really dressed real formally for work, but he did tend to be in slacks with a collared shirt at the least. Occasionally he showed up in a sweater instead, which thinking about it now, always looked really good.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind stopping on the way there.” Lance smiled, and the sweet smile he got back from Shiro made his stomach buzz with excitement. “My car is this way.”

Shiro followed Lance like a duckling at first, picking up his pace just a bit to be in stride with Lance. “Are you still sure you’re okay driving? Parking there can be expensive.”

“I don’t mind.” Lance led Shiro just half way down the street, he’d gotten lucky parking the night before after buying some snacks to keep in the hotel room, and maybe, a bottle of wine which had been his real aim. “Besides, we’ll probably be too tired to take the subway home on Sunday anyway, and we’ll regret not having the car.”

“You’re probably right.” Shiro conceded and carefully set his duffel bag next to Lance’s in the trunk before they both got inside. “Have you ever been to this con before?”

Lance shook his head, starting the car and carefully pulling out of the parking spot. “No, I’ve only been in New York for a few years, I went to a few in Florida when I was a teenager though. Have you?”

“Yeah.” Shiro nodded, “my aunt took me as a gift when I was in high school, but I haven’t been since.” Lance filed that away quickly, because he was pretty sure he’d only ever really heard Shiro talk about his aunt. He hadn’t directly said it, but Lance had the feeling she might be his only family.

Lance chuckled, “so it will be like we’re reliving high school.” Shiro laughed and shook his head, for a moment, he looked terrified and Lance couldn’t help but notice as he glanced at Shiro despite trying to keep his eyes on the road. “Don’t want to relive high school?”

“Does anyone really?” Shiro asked and Lance thought about it a moment.

“Okay, fair point.” Lance looked at his high school years fondly, but he also understood why others might now. “Do you want coffee on the way or do you want to wait to be at the hotel?”

Shiro laughed, which made Lance feel better. He’d worried he might have offended Shiro. “On the way please,” Shiro said, “otherwise I’m going to fall asleep in your car.”

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Lance kept his voice nice and sarcastic and Shiro groaned.

“Yeah, sort of, I’m a bit of an insomniac.” He smiled at Lance though, looking like he’d conceded to his ways. Pulling into the drive through, Lance smirked.

“Are you sure you aren’t just too busy being up all night with other people?” Lance glanced at Shiro just in time to catch his look of flustered panic, his mouth hanging open and his face going redder than Lance had ever seen it. But when Lance started laughing, it turned into more passive sheepishness, Shiro rubbing the back of his neck slightly and laughing with Lance. “Sorry, I’m just being an ass.”

Shiro’s laugh was light, “it’s fine.” For a moment, when Lance looked back at Shiro, his eyes were on his neck again, and lingering on the well faded hickey Spidey had left on him. Honestly, if Shiro could see it, he would have to have known it was there already. Had Lance done a bad job covering it that first day? That would be unlike him.

“What?” Lance asked, catching Shiro’s eyes again before refocusing on the road. Shiro twitched, visibly and got sheepish all over again.

“N-Nothing,” Shiro said, “sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”

Lance chuckled, pulling into the drive through and brushing it off. But the thought did linger in his head. The only person who really would have known about that hickey was Spidey, though the momentary thought of Spidey and Shiro being the same person was almost laughable to him. Shiro seemed so, normal and shy. Then again, a mask could do a lot for someone’s confidence. Lance zoned out, watching the wall of the Starbucks while he thought it out. His mental image of Shiro was boxy from dress shirts and slacks, so he didn’t think their physique was real similar. They were both broad shouldered, they had a narrow waist, and even similar arms. Lance decided he might be thinking about this too much.

He turned back to Shiro before pulling up in line, who was looking at his phone and intently reading something that looked dense and long. “Are you working right now?” Lance asked, leaning over a bit to look at Shiro’s phone. He didn’t catch anything super clearly, he wasn’t really trying to read it anyway since it was Shiro’s phone.

Shiro locked it instantly though, like a sharp reflex he’d built up over the years. “Ah, sorry, you caught me.” Shiro’s smile was sincere and apologetic, “it was something a lead sent me.”

“Don’t make me confiscate your phone,” Lance said. Shiro looked momentarily terrified, shoving his phone into his pocket and putting his hands up to show they were empty.

“Promise.” Shiro gave Lance a bit of a dopey grin, he obviously believed Lance would take his phone away from him if given the chance. “No more work.”

Lance laughed, pulling up in line again and rolling down his window. “Good,” Lance said, “besides that’s exactly why Keith gave you the tickets, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Shiro sighed and leaned on the window a bit, “he thinks I’m overworked.”

“Are you?” Lance handed Shiro his coffee and then took his own, sipping at it as he rolled up his window and started to pull away. Shiro coughed, shifting himself in his seat. Frankly, Lance had a feeling that Shiro was up around clock, but the thought popped back into his head, the small, weird feeling that Shiro might be Spider-Man. Keith was his best friend, maybe Keith knew and worried. Lance put the thought to bed again, because it was silly.

Shiro chuckled, “as much as any journalist. I’m more worried about you, chasing Spider-Man around the city at all hours of the night.”

“I guess I’m not one to talk.” Lance hummed, “I spent like five hours the other night making freezer meals too, so it’s not like I’m real good at sleeping either.”  
“Ah, is that how you always have a lunch at work? I should try that sometime.” Shiro paused though, his face going sour. “Though, I’m, not a very good cook.”

Lance nearly laughed, but it caught in his throat. Why did that sound so familiar? He forced a laugh out of his mouth, Shiro didn’t seem to notice, and Lance could rack his brain for the words until it clicked. Spidey had said almost the exact same thing to him the other night, and Lance found himself going down this path again. It was weird the way he’d caught one thing and started a landslide, Spidey had also taken a lasagna from Lance’s freezer when he left, which would be about the only way Shiro could have ever had Lance’s lasagna.

“I’m sure you’re not that bad if you just follow a recipe.” Lance smiled and then promptly added, “I could show you easier stuff if you wanted.” His head was piling things up now, all the little moments, the times it seemed like Shiro knew about intel Lance had gotten from Spider-Man before Lance had said enough about it for him to know. All the times Shiro had reassured him that Spider-Man was looking out for the best interest of the city. The way he seemed to know where that hickey was. It all came crashing down on Lance’s head and left him wondering.

The evidence was anecdotal, it wouldn’t survive a high school newspaper. But his gut, all the sudden, it told him he needed to follow this lead somehow.

“I’d like that,” Shiro smiled at Lance and suddenly Lance was forced back into the reality of being alone with Shiro. Shiro the guy he had a crush on, who he might have slept with, and might have been a different guy Lance had a crush on. Well the same guy, but in a suit that covered his face so he could have been anyone, but maybe it was Shiro. Oh god. Lance was in trouble.

* * *

Shiro set his bag down in the room, coughing softly and trying his best to make himself sound like he was having trouble breathing. It wasn’t very hard, he’d had asthma once, before he was Spider-Man. All he had to do was act like it was acting up. Or at least he hoped it could work like that, he’d never tried this before. It seemed easier than food poisoning when he’d been planning for the trip.

Lance though, lucky for Shiro, was empathetic and easily concerned, so it was about fifteen minutes of coughing and pretending to weeze as they made their way up to the hotel room for Lance to ask him if he was okay.

“Fine,” Shiro said, “I just need to find my inhaler.”

Lance took that bait easily. “Inhaler? Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

Shiro nodded, pulling out a years old inhaler and making a quick show of trying to take a long, deep breath of an oxygen canister he had lying around at home. He was lucky it had fit in the inhaler. Of course, following ‘taking his medicine’ he continued to cough and wheeze, and in about fifteen minutes of pouting, mild arguing, and some insisting he not ruin the whole day for Lance, Shiro convinced Lance he just needed to rest and Lance should really go down and enjoy the con.

He was careful to make sure Lance was actually gone before he slipped into his suit, pulling on his mask last and making sure he had both his phone and his room key before he snuck out a fire escape and down the side of the hotel. He made sure to web a bag of clothes inside a stairwell though, just in case Lance got back before him and brought a backpack with come to cover all his bases. There were eyes on him the moment he was sailing across the wide parking lot to the convention center. He and Lance had gotten there about an hour before he needed to be there to make his appearance. Now he had about fifteen minutes to get down there, but dropping from the ceiling was part of the show.

Spidey always made an appearance at comic con. It had become a big draw and despite Shiro not loving being the center of a crowd, he did like meeting people who cared about him. Or wanted to thank him for helping someone they knew, or wanted to ask him questions about what he did, or little kids that wanted to take a picture with him.

He apologized as he slipped through the door of the convention center, nearly running into a few people as he landed and ran through. Shiro knew better than to stay on the ground long though, swinging up and flying over the convention center, the people in it, and hundreds of booths selling comics and all sorts of things. Shiro loved comic con for that half. He usually hung out at the con outside of being there as Spider-Man every year to pick up new comics and usually buy something he could use to embarrass Tony or Steve.

The people in the area he was told to be at were looking up, so when he landed, none of them jumped. “Sorry, running late,” Shiro said, glancing out at the crowd of people who were suddenly somewhere between staring and cheering. The crowd handlers didn’t really hesitate, they just started to push people through.

It was a lot of talking, and Shiro always felt like a bit of a politician. It didn’t make him feel awesome, mostly it tired him out and he wanted about half way through to be anywhere else, but he was as nice and polite as he could be. Emotional exhaustion was something he experienced more often as he got older. He sort of missed when he was a teenager who loved it when people paid attention to Spider-Man.

He was starting to feel so tired he thought he might have to tap out for a little while when, Lance of all people wandered up, by himself, a sweet smile on his face that had Shiro melting. Shiro, of course, regarded Lance a bit differently, pulling him into a little hug which earned him a sweet laugh. Lance blushed noticeably and Shiro remembered just how odd it was to be close to Lance like this when he wouldn’t nearly do something like pull him into a hug when he wasn’t in his Spider-Man suit.

“Hey Sharpshooter,” Shiro said, and Lance got bashful over the nickname, “didn’t know you were going to be here.”

Lance laughed softly, rolling his eyes in a way that would have made Shiro swoon if he’d done it to him at work. “I didn’t know either, but my friend who’s here with me isn’t feeling well so I thought I might as well stop by.”

“That sucks you’ll be alone. Hopefully he feels better soon.” Shiro felt better that Lance obviously bought the lie, although Shiro still felt bad for lying to him. Lance smiled though, and for a moment, he had a soft look on his face.

“Yeah, I’d really like to spend more time with him,” Lance said. Shiro felt his breath catch in his throat, and for a moment, he really couldn’t think of a good way to respond. Something about the way Lance said it, made his whole face feel hot and his stomach flutter excitedly. “Oh hey,” Lance said, “I saw this and got it for you.”

Lance held up a phone charm, small and a cute looking drawing of Iron Man. He smiled, swinging the phone charm in a way that had Shiro following it with his eyes. “I thought you would like it for some reason.”

“I do.” Shiro laughed and took the charm from Lance, looking over the blue edges and slipped his phone from his pocket. It was on the Spider-Man user already, so he didn’t have to worry about Lance seeing it. He was always careful to keep his phone nice and generic. Shiro knew it could identify him, and he knew in a way this charm could to, but he could keep it on his phone during the con. “It’s so funny, I love showing this sort of thing to Tony. It embarasses him and not much does that.”

“Tony?” Lance sounded confused for a just a moment and then he went, “oh. You call Iron Man by his first name?”

Shiro felt bashful for a moment. Admittedly, it took him years to graduate from ‘Mr. Stark’. It wasn’t until Tony really sat him down and explained that he regarded Shiro as a son that Shiro managed to stop and switch to Tony, if he was being honest, Dad probably would be the most appropriate thing. But it felt like it had too much weight now, and Tony just felt right. He’d never want Aunt Mei to feel like she was being replaced either.

Lance didn’t wait for Shrio to respond though, nudging Shiro’s shoulder. “That’s sweet,” he said, “you’ve told me before he looks after you. Now you have a pocket sized version.”

“Yeah, he does.” Shiro smiled and looped the charm onto his phone case. “Thank you for this Lance, it was sweet of you.”

“Of course Spidey.” Lance looked sort of melty, and honestly, Shiro sort of wondered how Lance would react if they got together. If Lance was dating Shiro, what would happen between Lance and Spidey?

As he waved goodbye to Lance, and watched him head off to the rest of the con, Shiro didn’t really care. He liked the idea of Lance and Shiro more than he liked the idea of Lance and Spider-Man. And that was all that really mattered in the long run. He held up the charm in the light in a moment he had to breathe, and he finished out visiting people like it was nothing before he headed back to the hotel room.

Lance was ahead of him though, he’d gotten a text saying he was heading back, so Shiro went and snuck into a bathroom to change. Once he looked like Shiro again, he dumped his suit and his phone into his backpack and made sure to come around the hotel like he was coming from the convention center. It had only been a few hours, but he could argue he recovered from an asthma attack in that time. Especially if he claimed it was a light one and swore he had his inhaler just in case.

“Shiro.” Lance found him in the lobby, “where were you?”

“Sorry, I tried to find you in the convention center since I was feeling better.” Shiro rubbed the back of his head, “but I didn’t have good reception and had no way to find you so I turned around.”

“It’s fine. Are you sure you’re feeling alright to be out?” Lance folded his arms, he didn’t look particularly annoyed or anything, just worried. Shiro nodded firmly, smiling as he tugged his inhaler from his pocket.

“Promise I’m fine,” Shiro said, “plus I brought the inhaler, I’ll be okay.”

Lance hummed and examined him for a moment. Honestly, Shiro had to struggle not to squirm because of the way Lance was looking at him. “Okay if you say so, but we should take it easy.”

“I think I can take that compromise.” Shiro was relieved. It had all worked out, and Lance seemed to believe it all even. All he had to do now was enjoy the rest of the con and spend time with Lance. Although, that was complicated in its own right. Shiro knew he had an opportunity here, he didn’t want to mess it up, but before they even started to the convention center, Lance paused and looked up at Shiro.

“Do you want to get dinner at a restaurant tonight?” Lance asked, his eyes ahead of him as he started to lead Shiro to the con again. Shiro felt his face get hot again. “I just thought it might be nice,” Lance added.

“Yeah.” Shiro’s voice sounded sheepish even to himself, “that does sound nice.”

Lance turned back a bit to smile at him, his arm linking with Shiro’s as he pulled him into a large crowd at the front entrance of the hotel. Shiro leaned into the feeling, his blood pumping fast and the adrenaline carrying him through talking and laughing with Lance. There wasn’t a lot else Shiro thought could be better than this, and not unlike the night he’d spent with Lance as Spidey, he suddenly wanted this to be his whole life.

* * *

Lance felt a little bit bad about giving Spider-Man a marked charm. He’d carefully used a sharpie to line the outside of the phone charm blue, it was the only one of its kind and Lance knew it was underhanded. But his morbid curiosity to know if Shiro was Spidey had gotten the best of him. The strange guttural hunch that had him convinced Shiro might be Spider-Man needed to be sated or he would never let it go. If Shiro wasn’t Spider-man, that was fine. Lance still had a horrible crush on Shiro regardless. He’d just have to stop flirting with Spidey after that.

All this fell from his head the moment Shiro agreed to go out to dinner with him that night. That left Lance in a state of excited planning. He wanted to get this right, he needed to know for sure if Shiro was interested, and he needed to know immediately so he could maybe work towards building something with Shiro. And while someone might tell him he was being overly cautious, Lance didn’t like guessing games when it came to someone he’d really fallen hard for. He liked to know before he made any sudden moves.

Of course, when they got to dinner they split a bottle of wine and that all went out the window the way most of his plans did. But Shiro smiled at Lance over his glass, and made quiet conversation that made Lance laugh. Lance might not have been getting the answers he’d intended to get, sure, but he was having a fantastic time.

“And then we accidentally blew up the lab about a week later.” Shiro laughed and sipped at his wine, “Well, I’m still not sure if it was accidental or on purpose. _I_ wasn’t trying to do it on purpose.”

Lance laughed, his whole frame shaking and he set down the glass he was holding so he wouldn’t drop it. “How did a teacher not manage to stop you guys?”

Shiro shrugged, genuinely surprised and smiling brightly, “I don’t honestly know, looking back on it, we were terrible and I probably should track her down and apologize for it.”

“Well everyone’s terrible in high school, it’s expected.” Lance and Shiro had both long finished their food and now they were finishing off the wine. “Hey you know, I brought another bottle of wine with me. It’s back in the room.”

Shiro finished his glass and set it down, “really? We should go back and get that.” Shiro didn’t look particularly drunk, he only talked more, and Lance sort of liked that. Buzzed Shiro told more stories and seemed more confident in his own voice. It was cute, really cute. Buzzed Lance was finding himself entranced with it.

“We can drink it when we get back,” Lance said. He didn’t really have any intention to drink it when they got back. They were comfortably buzzed, both sober enough to keep talking the entire way back. He slid past his bag with the wine in it laying himself out in the bed and humming. “Actually, we should go to bed, get up bright and early tomorrow.”

Shiro chuckled, “that’s fine. I don’t really want to have an hangover tomorrow anyway.”

“Perfect,” Lance said, rolling over to slide his jeans off and let them drop on the ground near his bag. He then carefully slipped himself into the bed, facing Shiro who was digging in his bag. Shiro came up with a pair of basketball shorts, and glanced at Lance briefly.

“Do you mind if I sleep without a shirt?” Shiro asked. Lance managed to stop himself from promptly spitting out an excited no. Honestly, he’d been curious, Shiro’s profile was well built, but Shiro never mentioned working out ever. This might go in his bank of Spider-Man evidence, though, he cared more about finding out what Shiro’s physique was like since he was always running around in fairly bulky clothes.

“No, I don’t mind.” Lance managed to keep his tone nice and even, and he managed to turn away to look at his phone to make himself look disinterested. Of course, he made it a point to catch Shiro in his peripheral when he slipped his shirt off. For a second, Lance thought his heart might stop, and then Shiro got into bed with him after flipping off the light. Lance kept himself very still, just to be safe, because Shiro was apparently built like a god and that was fine. It was totally something Lacne could handle.

“Is there anything you wanted to do tomorrow?” Shiro asked in a tone that was calm and cool. He seemed unbothered by sharing a bed, and Lance wasn’t bothered so much as flustered. So he took a deep breath and set his phone down, turning to face Shiro in bed as he slid one of his arms under his pillow.

“There were a few panels I’d like to try to go to,” Lance sighed, “and I’d like to spend more time in the dealer’s hall. But I should be careful or I’m going to spend too much money.”

Shiro laughed, his eyes lit up in the low light coming from the window behind Lance. “Yeah,” Shiro said, “we should be weary of that. Otherwise I’m going to be in the same place you are.”

“Are there any panels you want to see?” Lance asked, smiling at Shiro in a way he reserved admittedly for flirting. It was dark, Shiro probably couldn’t see, although, the look on Shiro’s face might have said otherwise. Either way, Lance didn’t mind, he wanted to see where this could go, even if it meant he never had sex with Spidey again or even if Shiro turned out to _be_ Spidey. Lance had to see where this would go.

* * *

Shiro woke up with Lance fairly close to him. Not touching, barely not touching, but if Shiro shifted just a bit, Lance’s forehead would be pressed against Shiro’s bicep and for a moment, Shiro nearly indulged in pressing closer to him. He caught himself though, instead of maybe crossing a line and getting caught, Shiro shuffled away a tiny bit, looking over Lance’s face and wishing for a moment he could take a picture. He certainly wouldn’t, but a mental image he was going to keep for the rest of his life would suffice.

“Morning,” Lance mumbled, his eyes barely open. Shiro nearly jumped out of his skin, eliciting a soft laugh from Lance. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine.” Shiro forced himself to calm down. He just hoped Lance didn’t totally catch him staring. He probably had. Shiro just hoped he wasn’t mad.

“Did you want to go downstairs and get breakfast in the hotel before we head out?” Lance rubbed his eyes and turned into his pillow more. It allowed Shiro even more time to relax, and as he thought about the night before and Lance in this very moment, he wanted to see if this could go somewhere, and maybe that day could be the first day it did.

“Yeah, let’s get something to eat and head out.” Shiro stretched his legs a bit and carefully slid out of the bed, scooping up his clothes quickly.

“Sounds good, you can shower first.” Lance shifted himself to lie flat on his stomach, still holding onto his pillow. Shiro noted to keep that mental image for a good long time too, even as Lance airly added, “I’ll probably take a lot longer than you.”

Shiro just chuckled, hiding in the bathroom for a bit to help calm his nerves. He could handle not making a total fool of himself all day if he could handle not making a fool of himself while drunk the night before. He took a deep breath, brushed his teeth and slipped into the shower.

Once he was out and Lance had, in fact, taken quite a bit longer in the bathroom than Shiro had, they ate breakfast and found themselves caught up in the vastness of the convention. Getting lost for a few hours was easy, sticking close to each other and exploring the con without much worry about time or where they were so long as they didn’t lose sight of each other.

Of course, given Shiro’s luck, he found himself in front of a booth full of rare comics about the time that the sound of something exploding rang in the distance. He felt his stomach drop, watching smoke rise through a distant window.

Lance was at his side in a second, his eyes bright as another loud explosion rang out, a string of jittery noises that Shiro could only guess was the sound of a transformer exploding. He really hoped that it didn’t mean what he thought it did, but it did mean he had to go, no matter what excuse he tried to come up with.

“I have to go,” Lance said. Shiro’s attentioned snapped to his side, Lance’s face screwed up and sad. “Spidey will be there.”

As much as Shiro wanted to comfort Lance and try to get him to stay, he needed the opportunity to go after who or whatever was causing the explosions. “It’s fine,” Shiro said, “I understand Lance. I know work is important to both of us. I’d be going to if I got a good enough lead.”

Lance frowned and then sighed, “you’re right. I promise, I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“I know.” Shiro glanced at the window when there was another explosion. “Be careful.”

“Always am.” Lance sighed and then ducked off into the crowd. As soon as he was out of sight, Shiro was running full speed to the hotel room. Lucky for him, Lance clearly went straight for the action, so he was alone to change and go swinging towards the commotion.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Lance got out of the cab and ran the rest of the way towards the smoke. He ducked into an alley, knowing that being out of the way was generally a good idea in these situations. Of course, he knew he was in the right spot when he caught sight of Electro working himself into a ball of sparking fury as he shoved his hand into a transformer and sapped the electricity out of it. Lance tucked himself back into the alley as it blew up, the explosion shaking the whole street.

“Fuck.” Lance had clearly gotten far too close by accident. He covered his ears, trying to make his way back down the alley, his eyes scanning the air in hopes of seeing Spidey because that would be about the only thing that would make him feel safe at this point. He looked back down the alley just in time to see Electro’s white eyes hit him, acknowledge that Lance was there and then Lance turned back, running down the alley as fast as he could.

He felt his hair stand on end, turning down a different alley, but the feeling didn’t go away, so Lance just kept running until he found a brick wall. When he turned around, he found Electro, fully charged and coming at Lance. The electricity fluttered in the air and the static broke against his skin, he tried to cover his face as Electro grew closer, speaking loudly but his voice was garbled by the sound of electricity scattering out in all directions.

Lance felt the the heat, and then he felt something on his back, the comforting feeling of flying straight up and into Spidey’s arms. He clung to Spidey like a kid on their parent. Spidey had a tight grip on him, and as they rose, they shot across the alley above Electro’s head, the distinct sound of static popping in the air. Lance watched the area as they flew over it, his eyes catching something odd, a flash of white hair, and when he focused on it, he could see a person running full speed away from them, long white hair trailing behind. He really couldn’t blame them, whoever they were.

Spidey landed them sort of hard, his movements frantic like he’d only just gotten there and found Lance about to be killed by Electro, which reasonably, Lance was trying to pretend didn’t just happen. He naturally cowered, like he would when his parents would reprimand him for doing something dangerous as a kid. While he understood why Spidey might be angry with him, the sheer worry and frustration rolling off him made Lance nervous.

“Lance, _what are you doing here_?” Spidey’s voice was sharp and chastising, and frankly, Lance couldn’t really blame him. Though, it felt sort of nice to know that Spidey cared about him that much, Lance thought of Shiro in bed with him the night before and Lance wanted nothing more than to go back to that. Safe with Shiro in his hotel room sounded so much better than being with Spidey and Electro.

“He was coming towards me.” Lance sputtered and swallowed, trying to get his wits back about him. “I mean, I was heading towards him slowly, and didn’t realize he had been making his way closer to me until it was too late.”

Electro flew up in the air, the sparks flying as he landed himself on another rooftop nearby. Spidey didn’t seem happy, but he looked back at Lance. “Okay, listen, he is going to come after me, please just be anywhere else. Don’t risk coming back for me.”

Lance’s eyes darted to Electro, and then Spidey got between the two of them, making sure Lance was looking only at him. “Got it,” Lance said, “I promise.”

“Good, go now, there’s a fire escape.” Spidey pointed, and then Lance watched as he went running for Electro, swinging up over his head again and hitting him with a web that just fizzled away. Lance got to the edge of the building, turning so he could lower himself onto the fire escape from where he was on the roof. When he looked back, he watched Electro drop Spidey into the alley with a heavy hit and Lance stared long enough to watch Electro follow him down.

Lance landed on the fire escape, and while he knew it was incredibly stupid, he ran down it and slid his way down the ladder at the bottom until he reached the ground with a thud. Once he was on the ground, he ran back towards the alley he’d watched Electro and Spidey fall into, looking around for anything he could use. It didn’t take him long to find about half of an old tire, well, he was pretty sure it was a tire but he couldn’t really tell. The most important thing was that it was rubber.

He rounded the corner slowly, looking down the alleyway at Electro and Spidey who were fighting. Though, Spidey was doing a lot of yelling at Electro, trying to call his name, which was apparently Max, and get him to listen to whatever it was Spidey had to say. Spidey set webs in a nice lattice pattern as he bounced around trying to avoid Electro in hopes of catching him, clearly saw Lance the moment he came around the corner. Honestly, Lance had never seen someone in a mask look so simultaneously pissed off and worried in his life.

Spidey looked more worried than anything when Lance threw the tire over one shoulder and started to climb the nearest fire escape. He made a gesture, trying to tell Lance to get away, but Lance didn’t look at him, instead, he got to the top of the fire escape, ran to the further corner to get the best shot he could and chucked the tire at Electro.

Much to Lance’s glee and Spidey’s anxiety, the tire landed right on Electro’s shoulder, wrapping in a way that gave Spidey just the opportunity to web it shut, which he took. Once Lance had drawn attention to himself though, he realized the mistake he’d made. Electro ran full speed through the webs, grabbing onto the metal fire escape as Lance tried to scramble up the side of the brick building. He at least managed to keep himself up while Electro sent a shock of electricity up the fire escape, yelling incoherently again.

“Hey!” Spidey webbed the tire and with a quick tug, yanked Electro onto his ass. It was enough to turn his blind rage back against Spidey, but it was too late. Spidey swung the webs and Electro landed directly in a wall, bricks falling down on him and his skin turning from electric blue to a sullen grayish brown. “Max!”

Spidey was at Electro’s side fast, and despite himself, Lance carefully started to climb down the fire escape to meet him. He kept his distance still, watching as Spidey called some kind of transportation from inside his suit, chattering to Karen and trying to smack the side of Max’s face. “Spidey,” Lance said.

“L-,” He caught himself, “Sharpshooter, I know you’re here because you’re a reporter and all, but are you nuts? You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

“I know.” Lance closed the distance between them slowly, “listen, you can yell at me later, we should get him out from under the rubble and see if there’s anything we can do for him.”

Spidey for a moment looked hard and then he nodded. “Max is a good person. He’s never trying to hurt anyone, he has an illness....”

“I believe you, but something,” Lance paused, “when he came at me, he didn’t seem right. Is this the first time you’ve seen him like this?”

“Yes,” Spidey said, “but he’s not the first person I’ve seen like this. Black Cat and Sandman, something was going on with both of them like they’d gone feral.”

Lance nodded and looked down at Max’s bruised face. The two of them had most of the rubble off by the time an Avenger’s transport showed up. In it was a very wary looking Hawkeye, who seemed to pay a bit too much attention to Lance and Spidey. The way he looked at them, it was like he knew something had happened between the two of them. If anything had happened, it was that Lance really realized he needed to tell Spidey that there’d never be a repeat of that night.

Much to Lance’s surprise, Spidey didn’t get on the transport with Hawkeye. Instead, he stayed on the ground with Lance, well, he jumped up on a fire escape to watch the hovercraft leave, and then carefully lowered himself down, hanging onto his web upside down like a true spider. “I hate to leave you so quickly after that, but I have somewhere I need to be.”

Lance shook his head, “no, it’s okay. I promised someone I’d get back to them as soon as I could.”

“Good,” Spidey said, “I’m glad you won’t be alone.”

“Hey, uhm, before we both run off.” Lance shifted to get a little closer to Spidey, they were about eye level, but Spidey was upside down so it felt sort of strange even if it was only for the moment. “I need to talk to you about the other night.”

“Lance, it’s–” Spidey started, but Lance waved him off really quick. He shook his head, and then took a deep breath because there was no other way he’d get through this.

* * *

“The other night can’t happen again.” Lance looked riled up, and Shiro, really couldn’t do anything about it, he tried to think of options, but all he had was to sit there and let Lance say whatever he needed to say. Though, Shiro had to say, he felt like the two of them not being able to have another one night stand was pretty obvious. “It’s not because it was bad, and it’s not anything to do with you I just.”

Lance seemed to search, and for a moment, Shiro felt his stomach flutter. Because as much as Lance might be breaking up with Spidey, Shiro had a feeling that maybe this was going to pan out better for him in the long run. Or at least, he really got his hopes up fast.

Eventually, Lance sighed and laughed quietly, soft and awkward as his face got red, “there’s this guy at work, remember the one I was talking about the other night? I thought he just wasn’t really aware of me, but I guess I was wrong and we’ve gotten closer in the last few weeks.”

Shiro felt simultaneously great and sort of dumb. How had he not noticed that Lance had been trying to return his affections? Well, Shiro reasonably hadn’t known that Lance had let everything with Keith go, but still Lance did ask him to go to dinner, clung to him, and the way he smiled at Shiro had even seemed to change lately. Shiro really didn’t care about how dumb he’d been now, now he cared about making sure Lance knew he was free to do whatever he wanted and that Spidey shouldn’t tie him down.

“Lance,” Shiro couldn’t believe he could talk, but Spidey was Lance’s friend, and he always tried to give Lance good advice if he could, “I promise it’s okay. I knew what I was getting into the other night, and after today, after finding you staring down Electro with nothing to defend yourself. I’m glad that you have someone else you want to be with.”

Lance choked mid-breath, his face screwing up for a moment. “Okay, yeah, you’re right. But I’m still going to be around, Spidey. I’m still your friend, I’m going to come running if you need me.”

“I know.” Shiro sighed and looked back up at Lance. “Just please, try to keep a reasonable distance from guys with crazy electricity powers, I don’t care if it’s Thor himself, just, try to stay further away. Please?”

A somber look fell over Lance’s face and he laughed again, quiet and genuine. “Okay,” he said, “I can do that. Thank you Spidey, I have to go.”

Shiro nodded, and much to his surprise, Lance grabbed him briefly, just long enough to still the gentle sway of the web and kiss Shiro on the cheek through the mask. Once he’d done that, Lance went running into the distance and Shiro realized he needed to get back to the hotel room. Lucky for him, it was rush hour, and getting around by web was much faster than a cab.

He beat Lance back by a long shot, there was no way that Lance was getting back in less than an hour and Shiro managed to make it back in twenty minutes. Shiro quickly peeled off his suit, sweaty and honestly smelling a bit like gym locker room, he promptly tossed it into his laundry bag and sealed it in his suitcase safely. He had enough time to shower for the second time that day, trying to ensure there was nothing on him that could indicate he’d been electrocuted at any point that day before he slipped on some comfortable clothes and found himself out on the bed, just waiting as he poked through the room service menu.

When Lance got back, his eyes had a hollow look to them. He looked scared, jittery, and quiet. It was the least like Lance that Shiro had ever really seen him. He had to reel in his impulse to immediately try to comfort him and talk about what happened, but he technically shouldn’t know what happened while Lance went to chase after Spidey. Shiro bit his tongue, letting Lance set his things down.

“I was thinking of ordering room service, do you want anything?” Shiro asked. He wasn’t really sure why, but the moment it came out of his mouth, Lance finally seemed to relax a bit, his shoulders dropping and the tension in his face relieving.

“That sounds nice.” Lance sat down on the ground with Shiro, sharing the menu with him long enough to chose something, and then Shiro coaxed him into getting a dessert too. Granted, it didn’t take much coaxing at all once Shiro mentioned they had tiramisu.

“They said there’s a bit of wait. It is dinner time after all.” He settled himself back down next to Lance, who was still parked on the floor in front of the bed.

“How long?” Lance’s eyes followed Shiro, something Shiro had slowly become keenly aware of since Lance had gotten back. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but on top of what Lance told him earlier when he was with him as Spidey, it was making him more and more anxious.

“Forty-five minutes.” Shiro turned back to pick up a pillow from the bed, something to hold onto while they watched TV might help calm his nervous stomach. He didn’t see that Lance had stood up until he felt Lance’s hand on his arm. Shiro’s face flushed, he could feel the heat as he looked down at Lance, who had sidled up to Shiro so quietly he hadn’t noticed. That or Shiro had gotten so into his own head he’d blocked it out. “L-Lance?”

“So we’ve got a little time?” Lance had a look in his eyes that Shiro started to recognize, it wasn’t quite the same as when Lance did this to Spidey. It was mostly the same though, and Shiro promptly fell back into the bed when Lance gave him a gentle shove.

“Yeah, we have some time.” Shiro started to get his bearings until Lance carefully moved to straddle him. Then everything fell right out of his head again. “W-What–”

Lance’s smile was enough to stop Shiro, he’d settled himself down on Shiro’s lap and now Shiro kind of cared more about committing this moment to memory than finding out quite what Lance was up to. “Do you mind, helping take something off my mind for a little while?” Lance asked, his hands now sliding up Shiro’s chest.

Shiro, despite his knee-jerk response to say yes and worry about it later, hesitated. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Lance paused, his eyes surprised before they turned soft again. “I promise I’m okay,” Lance’s hands started moving again, “I’ll explain more later. For now, I really want this. I want us.”

Shiro’s mouth dropped open, more than at a loss of what exactly that meant, but Lance quietly chuckled and pressed a kiss on Shiro’s lips. After that, Shiro wasn’t really inclined to try and stop him again, letting Lance guide his hands to his hips and falling into the moment. Things could be sorted out after, for now, he wanted to give Lance an ‘us’.

* * *

Lance had his legs wrapped around one of Shiro’s, his face tucked into Shiro’s shoulder while Shiro’s fingers gently played with his hair. The moment was small, the two of them wrapped up and under the sheets together naked, still huffing softly while they got their bearings again. Of course, that meant that as soon as they turned to each other to try and talk, there was a loud knock at the door.

Shiro was out of the bed quickly, clearly not thinking.

“Wait, Shiro,” Lance called after him, “Shiro.” Shiro nearly made it to the door, pausing himself to look back at Lance before he swung it open. “Robe,” Lance said. It was the only thing he could think of, and for a moment, Shiro looked so confused, but it got him to look down at himself. Enough to realize he had no clothes on.

“Shit.” Shiro’s face was red, really red, but he grabbed a robe from the bathroom and wrapped himself up before he opened the door while Lance laughed. He had to admit, it definitely helped shake off everything that had happened earlier that day. Shiro spoke briefly with the server, quickly taking the tray from the cart and telling the server that it was fine, they didn’t need to wheel the cart in. It didn’t seem to take much convincing, Shiro managing to get the door shut behind him. Shiro let out a deep sigh, still holding the tray as he leaned back against the door. “Thank you.”

“Would you really have opened the door without realizing?” Lance sat up, looking around until he found his own underwear. Shiro made a very low noise, wandering over as Lance slipped his boxers on.

“I mean, I’d like to think I wouldn’t have.” Shiro set the tray of food down, slipping the cover off of it. They’d mostly gotten things they could share and eat with their hands, so Lance settled himself back on the bed and promptly swiped a strawberry from the tray. “Are you okay?”

Lance shoved the entire strawberry in his mouth quickly, giving him time to think under the guise of chewing. Shiro didn’t seem too put off by anything he’d done that night so far, so at least Lance didn’t have to worry about that. He watched as Shiro settled himself on the bed, still in just the robe as they both poked at the fruit and the pile of fries they ordered.

“I,” Lance paused, ruminating over how to say it without potentially terrifying Shiro. “I got a little too close to the fight between Electro and Spider-Man today.”

Shiro’s eyes got wide like dinner plates, and as he shook it off, he cleared his throat, “did you get close to Electro? You weren’t electrocuted, were you?”

Lance shook his head, “no, Spidey got there in time. It just….” He looked up at Shiro, who looked concerned, but he was listening to Lance intently. “I don’t know, it put a couple of things in perspective, and I mean, I know the way I was acting earlier was rash, but in my head it felt warranted at the time.”

Shiro blinked at him for a moment, and Lance thought he might have to explain further, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d confused Shiro. Shiro opened his mouth and closed it like he was getting ready to say something, and then tilted his head briefly. “Are you saying you almost died, so you came back here and jumped into bed with me?”

“I mean.” Lance flushed, he could feel the burning sensation all down on his chest. He could feel the sheets on his legs and his arms felt light and exposed. He was exposed, and for a moment it made him panic. “Yes, but I meant more that it put into perspective that I didn’t want to miss an opportunity like us, like being together. And I may have, gone about it, in not the best way, but–”

“Lance, Lance.” Shiro gently reached out to run his fingers through Lance’s hair, his eyes shining in a way that made Lance feel like a puddle. “It’s okay, I’m sorry. I was going to make a joke. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“It’s okay.” Lance snapped his mouth shut, and Shiro smiled at him. He really, was surprised that Shiro was being so understanding.

“So then, this, tonight.” Shiro took the opportunity to slide his fingers down Lance’s shoulder and it was just enough to make Lance shiver. After Shiro’s fingers left his skin, he didn’t look quite so confident though, his usual nervous look taking over as he gathered his thoughts. “Did you mean for it to just be tonight?”

Lance could see the vulnerability roll of Shiro’s movements, and like so many times before when they’d talked, Shiro’s anxiety seemed to make his voice get low. Lance never really knew this side of Shiro, Lance wanted nothing more than to protect him. “No,” Lance said, his confidence coming back. “I was hoping that we would be more than a one night stand. Like I said, I might not have handled this well.”

Shiro softened, his face red and his eyes hopeful. He didn’t quite look like he could talk yet though, instead, he reached out for Lance, pulling him close. Lance let himself be moved, surprised at how tender and level Shiro managed to be when he wanted to. “It’s okay,” Shiro said, “I’m not upset about it, especially if you didn’t want this to be a one time thing.”

“So then,” Lance settled himself against Shiro’s shoulder so that he didn’t have to look directly at his face as he spoke. “Would you want to go on an actual date sometime?”

“Yeah.” Shiro chuckled and kissed the top of Lance’s head. Lance nestled himself into Shiro’s shoulder, smiling as he offered Shiro a strawberry and he felt Shiro eat it from his fingers. “Are you free Thursday night?”

Shiro offered Lance a strawberry in turn, and Lance leaned forward to take the strawberry from his fingers, making it a point to catch the very tips of Shiro’s fingers with his lips. “So long as I’m not chasing Spidey, yes.”

“Well, in that case, we can always meet up after you’re done chasing Spidey around,” Shiro said. Lance laughed softly, looking up at Shiro and catching his eyes so that Shiro would look at him more directly.

“That’s sometimes at three in the morning,” Lance said. Shiro shrugged and picked up a handful of fries.

“I’m late to work everyday anyway,” Shiro said, “not like it could make me any later than normal.”

Lance almost said something, but he found himself pausing, thinking about Shiro and Spidey again. “Are you always late because you keep odd hours?”

“I have a lot of trouble sleeping.” Shiro sighed and then looked back at the fries he was eating. “Sometimes I don’t at all, and sometimes when I do fall asleep I have a lot of trouble getting out of bed.”

Lance hummed softly, that didn’t make a lot of sense to him, Shiro had slept fine the night before, but maybe he just hadn’t noticed that Shiro was up later than Lance. “Well, I’ll just keep covering for you at work.”

“I appreciate that.” Shiro let his head rest against Lance’s now, the two of them quieting down and watching the TV as they ate. Eventually, Shiro suggested they go to sleep, and Lance was already dozing off on him, so he quietly agreed.

The hotel room felt soft then, the lights down and a faint glimmer from the streetlights outside the window made it glow orange. Lance fell asleep pressed against Shiro’s shoulder, his arms tangled around Shiro’s arm and one of his legs thrown over him. Shiro didn’t seem to mind, letting Lance act like a koala as he peacefully slept.

Eventually, Lance woke to the sound of an alarm, loud and high pitched. Shiro pulled away from him carefully, leaning over the side of the bed to dig his phone from the pocket of his jeans. When he came back up, he shifted the phone in his palm so he could swipe away the alarm, his face hard and concerned.

That lost Lance’s attention though, whatever Shiro opened his phone to look at was suddenly completely unimportant. As Shiro had shifted his phone, a charm, small and lined with a blue marker along the edges fell out of his palm. His eyes blew up like balloons he was sure, Shiro hadn’t noticed yet, but for a long moment, Lance just stared, trying to register everything that had happened in the past few days, in the past few weeks, with Spidey, with Shiro. Spidey and Shiro, he repeated it in his head a few times and then looked up at Shiro’s face, disconcerted and rapidly reading whatever alert he’d gotten.

Shiro was Spider-Man.

“I,” Shiro paused, “I have to go.” He sat up, and as Lance shifted to sit up next to him, he was reminded of the day before. Shiro had no idea that Lance knew his secret, in fact, Shiro had done a pretty good job of keeping it from him considering Lance worked with Shiro and also Spider-Man. Though, a lot of strange coincidences from the last few years suddenly all clicked into place for Lance, and within the last couple months, or even days. Everything in Lance’s life suddenly made sense.

“Is something wrong?” Lance asked. He realized he needed to still play this part, the one who doesn’t know anything, for now, until he figured out what he wanted to do with the knowledge that not only was Shiro Spider-Man, but also that Lance was now dating Spider-Man, something he’d sort of convinced himself at one point he didn’t want to do. Although, he decided he didn’t want it because of Shiro.

“It’s, hard to explain,” Shiro said, “and work related, but I have a lead, I have to go follow it.”

“It’s okay.” Lance heard himself say, but he wasn’t sure if he’d meant to say it, “go, work is important. No different than yesterday.”

Shiro softened, and he pulled Lance into a sweet kiss that made Lance’s stomach flutter and then clench. Shiro running off to work meant a lot more than just following up on a lead, this was probably Spider-Man work by the loo on his face. “Thank you,” Shiro said, “I promise, I’ll make up missing the last day of the con to you.”

Lance chuckled softly, and shook his head, “no, it’s really okay. I promise.”

Shiro smiled, giving Lance another quick kiss before he got up to find his clothes. The hotel room was mildly destroyed, mostly because their clothes had wound up just about everywhere the night before, and somewhere in the scuffle of trying to have sex, they’d knocked over Shiro’s bag, so now he had to gather it all up.

He was out the door in just a few minutes though, with a soft kiss and a sweet goodbye and then Lance was all alone. All alone as he settled himself down into the bed, turning over to press his face into the pillow Shiro had been using. Suddenly it made a whole lot of sense that Shiro had smelled familiar to him, and then it clicked. Lance had sex with Shiro just a few weeks ago, and for a moment his skin shuddered with excitement, he was very glad he’d gotten up the gall to sleep with Spider-Man now, not just because he could say he did it, but because it might have led him here, to Shiro.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2** **  
Chapter 1**

Shiro cracked his knuckles and tilted his head back and forth carefully until his neck popped as well, “okay Karen, one more time please.”

“You are looking for any traces of people being drawn into a dangerous experiment, either by force or by some kind of manipulation. At least that’s what you think right now, you have no actual leads. There’s potentially someone seeking out people you have some sort of personal relationship with and specifically targeting them for this treatment. You have no idea if this is true, or if it is a coincidence. And you have absolutely no idea where to start. You also have to meet Lance at ten as Spider-Man and then your boyfriend, still Lance, at Midnight. Don’t forget to take your suit off though, you almost didn’t last time.”

He nodded along with Karen, shifting himself and then jumping from the building. “And what time is it now?”

“Six o’clock.” Shiro smiled and thanked Karen, flying through the air until his web caught and he swung around the next building across from him. He hadn’t really found anything since Black Cat had gotten sick, she was sort of back to her old self, but she still seemed off. She didn’t mock him as much as she usually did, and overall, she seemed like she still didn’t want to talk about something that had happened before Hawkeye and Shiro had found her. Like it had traumatized her, which really pissed Shiro off. He didn’t like the idea of anyone picking out his friends like that, and he certainly wasn’t going to let anyone get away with it.

Max wasn’t as lucky as Felicia and neither was Flint, Max was in jail in an Avengers facility because they hadn’t been able to calm him down. They were being kind, but not even Thor could be in a room with him long enough to give him a shot of the stuff that worked on Black Cat. Shiro couldn’t help the way he was starting to get desperate. He wanted to help, but he was starting to wonder if this faceless group that was doing this would ever come out of the woodwork or make the wrong move. They kept themselves so clean, and while others with similar symptoms had turned up, but when they hadn’t mutated or already had some kind of superpowers, they tended not to fare as well. Shiro had found three bodies in the last few weeks, and two people who he rushed to the hospital, but neither of them made it for more than a day or two. Worse, all five bodies hadn’t been identified, so they were alone in the morgue just waiting.

Shiro swung himself from place to face, focusing his search on areas he’d run into Sandman, Black Cat, and Electro, but he couldn’t find anything and they were scattered all over town. He’d never really favored himself a detective, he did his best, this just put insult to injury though. The more he looked, the less he seemed to find.

Hours went by fast, and when he settled himself down just above the spot he’d told Lance he would meet him, he couldn’t find it in himself to goof around. This drug issue on top of the alien weapons making a sudden comeback had put him in too bad of a mood. When he dropped down into the alleyway, Lance actually jumped since Shiro hadn’t announced himself.

“Whoa, Spidey.” Lance looked like he was reaching for something, pepper spray maybe. Seeing Lance did help slightly, even if Shiro couldn’t reach out to him like he would be able to later that night, talking to him usually settled him down lately and levelled him out. “What’s with the long face? You okay?”

Shiro laughed a bit, quietly and shrugged, “sorry, long week. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Lance shuffled himself back and forth a bit, looking nervous and worried still. “Are you sure you’re alright? Is something going on?”

“No, nothing you don’t already know about.” Shiro rubbed the side of his neck, thinking and he felt the grooves on his suit. “I can’t find anything about what’s going on with Electro or the others. Black Cat is more herself now, but she doesn’t want to talk much about what happened and I don’t want to make her if it was that traumatic.”

Lance frowned, “I guess that’s probably the right thing to do. Hopefully she’ll be recovered enough to talk soon.”

Shiro just nodded, and Lance’s frown got deeper. For a moment, Shiro had to resist the urge to do something that would seem normal between them when he wasn’t in his suit. But Lance didn’t know he was Spider-Man, and for now, that should stay the way it was. Though, Shiro worried about Lance getting seen with Spider-Man as well. He was starting to wonder if he should tell Lance he won’t meet with him at all until this got sorted, but Lance probably wouldn’t agree.

“I have some information,” Lance said, “I don’t know if it would help, but I was doing a bit of digging around and something my coworker said to me the other day seemed to connect a couple of dots and I put the rest of it together.”

Shiro watched Lance shuffle a notebook from his pocket, flipping through a few pages and pausing at notes Shiro had seen him write a couple of days ago when they were talking. Honestly, it struck Shiro a bit funny, but he didn’t want to try to explain why he was laughing, so he kept quiet about it. “What is it?” Shiro got the feeling that maybe he already knew about it, he didn’t want to discourage Lance though.

“Well.” Lance gave Shiro a sort of odd look and then carried on, “he said something about a new street drug, and recently I came across some information about this group that’s been offering one day detox treatments for the drug. I did a little more digging and this group is totally faceless, and many of the people who enter their rehab don’t reappear.”

Lance looked up at Shiro again, getting a little bit closer as he spoke, and Shiro actually had to say he hadn’t thought of it until Lance brought it up to him. “Do you think it’s related?”

“I could be wrong.” Lance sighed, shrugging his shoulders, “but if all your leads have run dry, maybe coming at it from a different angle is the way to work on it?”

Shiro’s shoulders sunk, “this isn’t exactly like writing.”

“I know.” Lance pouted at him briefly, “but starting here might be easier to come back around to what you’re actually looking for. There’s rumors everywhere that they’re experimenting on people, and it would be the easiest way to hide in plain sight.”

“Rumors they’re experimenting on people?” Shiro paused, that sounded like something Wade described to him once, something about how to hide while doing illegal experimentation like what was done to him, “like they’re taking in hopeless drug cases and trying to rehab them, but they never come back?”

“Yes.” Lance nodded, “do you know something about that?”

“No,” Shiro said, “but I know someone who might. Thank you Sharpshooter.” He flung his arm off to the side and felt the web catch against something that seemed strong enough to hold him.

“Wait,” Lance tried to grab Shiro, but he was already off the ground, “where are you going? Who are you going to meet?”

Shiro thought a moment, hard, and then he decided it would be better to tell Lance in case Spidey somehow disappeared after this. “Deadpool.”

“What?” Lance’s voice was nearly a scream. “Are you nuts?”

“I promise I’m not.” Shiro landed softly on a fire escape and looked back at Lance. “Really, what you see in the news about Deadpool is mostly not true?”

“Why did you say that like a question?” Lance set his hands on his hips as he looked up at Shiro. Shiro thought it was pretty cute honestly, and he was a little enblazened to get back to him later.

Shiro smiled, tilting his head back and forth in as he considered what he should say next, “because some of it is true. He gets me in trouble sometimes, yeah. But he would never hurt me, he’s real fond of me for whatever reason.”

Lance sighed, “all right. Just be safe, okay Spidey?”

“Of course.” Shiro waved, feeling jovial as he swung towards a potential lead, finally and of course, the fact that he was going to get to go home to Lance afterwards.

* * *

Lance took a deep breath, watching Shiro swing away from him as he pouted. He hadn’t known that Spidey knew Deadpool well enough to know he was a good person, but it still left an anxious feeling in his stomach to knowingly watch his boyfriend swing off to meet someone that had such a bad reputation.

Once he was back on the main street, he paused in the crowd to take a deep breath, comforted by the sound of the people around him. He sometimes needed the din of a crowded space to calm down, especially when he knew Shiro might be swinging off into a dangerous situation. Lance resisted the urge to try to follow, that run in with Electro had been plenty to scare Lance away. He still wanted to protect Shiro regardless.

Luckily, it took a long time for Lance to make his way home and once he got there, he slugged up the stairs to the third floor as slowly as he could. He slipped his phone from his pocket in front of his door, hoping for a message from Shiro as he shoved the door open with his shoulder. The building was old, and it creaked and popped and banged all the time. It seemed to put Shiro at ease in some way, but it made Lance mildly unnerved. At least while he was alone it did.

He shuffled into the living room, hearing a bit of noise here or there from the kitchen, and for a moment, he thought Shiro might have beaten him home, the door had been locked so it couldn’t really be anyone else. Lance smiled to himself, glad that obviously Deadpool had not hurt Shiro. His arms went up above his head, a hum on his lips as he stepped over the threshold to the kitchen, “you’re back early. No leads?”

Lance felt the hand over his mouth. Before he could react to anything else, he elbowed and kicked and tried to scream but the person holding him was strong. He flung his head back and forth, the hand following until he bit down on it.

“Shit!” The voice sounded like a woman’s, deep and rough from what Lance guessed had to be cigarettes. He felt her fist come down on the back of his head. “Little fucker.”

Lance threw an elbow into her gut, “get out of my house!”

She doubled over, backing off enough for Lance to jump for the knives on the counter only to get tripped by someone he didn’t even see. He went down hard, the air going out of him. Gasping, he tried to right himself, tried to reach for the counter as his vision started to go out. Another blow to his head, throbbing as he started to clamor at the cabinets, grabbing and dragging out pots as the two women grabbed him. They drew him back despite his best efforts to hold the cabinet, his fingers lost their grip as his eyes blacked over.

Then he couldn’t hear, his head fading with the thought of Shiro coming back to find him gone and the kitchen a wreck. He couldn’t feel the ground under him anymore, and then he couldn’t feel anything at all and his consciousness left.

* * *

Shiro swung over the buildings across the street from Lance’s landing in a tree before he swung himself into the back alley. He caught the sense, landing on the side of Lance’s building as he looked down over the two figures carrying something person shaped out of the building. Shiro felt his stomach drop, swinging down to land on a fence near enough to see Lance, his fear washing over him.

He didn’t hesitate after that, swinging towards one of the women carrying Lance at full speed, ready to take out whoever had obviously figured out Lance had a connection to Spidey. Shiro knew he should never have put a reporter’s life in danger like this, and now, even worse, he had put Lance of all people in this position.

“There he is!” One of the figures pointed up at Shiro, and a third seemed to grow out of a shadow, she caught Shiro, dragging him to the ground as he struggled. The other two focused on what they were doing, loading Lance up into a van with no plates, a fourth person inside. “Told ya’ he hung out with this reporter.”

“Lotor will love this,” another said, “he’s going to be so proud of us.”

“Let him go,” Shiro growled, but the person on top of him grabbed his head and threw it into the ground. His ears started to ring, shooting a web into the person’s face, but it was too late. They jumped back, flinging themselves as a group into the van and started closing the door. “Karen, strongest web.”

“If you want him back, you’ll have to come find us!” The woman threw her head back and laughed as she shut the door of the van.

He shot, but the van had to have had some kind of crazy mod on it, one he’d never even seen before. It revved, and shot down the alley so fast that his web never even reached it. Shiro scrambled to his feet, running after the van for a moment before he started to swing himself again, he chattered to Karen, trying to keep sight lines on the van, but it was no use. It spun around corners, shot through alleys and before Shiro knew it, Lance was gone with it.

“I need help.” Shiro said, staring at an empty road from a fire escape as he tried to form a plan in his head. It was black out, no moon and all the street lights seemed to be out.

“I can call Tony,” Karen said.

“No,” Shiro said, “no, I need to talk to Wade again.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Karen asked, computerized concern. Actual concern, Tony had built this program to parent him after all. He’d never really changed it.

“Yes. He can find Lotor, and that’s who took Lance.” Shiro started to swing out into the city again, making his way towards where he’d come from in the first place. Wade had gone to get him more information, but now Shiro needed to be with him. As he called Wade over and over again, he set Karen to track Lance’s phone if she could. Shiro didn’t know what to do, and worse off, he was still a few days from a decent lead. He couldn’t leave Lance waiting that long. He’d have to figure this out now.

Otherwise, it will be all his fault, just like ruining Liz’s life in high school.

* * *

Lance rolled into the world again with a migraine that made it feel like his head might clean fall off and a pain in his stomach that felt like he had a brick sitting on him. He took a deep breath, trying to push past the pain and assess the situation. He knew that getting close to Spidey could cause this, he’d always known, but now he could feel the heat in the distance, the feeling of Shiro searching frantically for him, or maybe wondering just where the hell Lance went in the first place. Something in his gut told him that Shiro already knew he was gone though.

His wrists rubbed on thick leather straps that held him down on the bed, a third laying across his chest and two more with a bit more give on his ankles. He certainly couldn’t get out of any of them, but they could probably be cut if he got lucky enough to grab something he could use to cut them. It might take a while though. He looked around the room, a weird sense of calm that he had a feeling might be due to some kind of drug that kept him uncomfortably level, his eyes sweeping the false room, curtains walling off a small area with a few hospital tables, an IV bag, his bed, and monitors which showed his vitals.

He looked around more, trying to strain against the binds to look, but he couldn’t find anything that indicated a date. Lance didn’t know how long he’d been there. His skin felt gross though, and his hair stuck to his neck and forehead slightly, so he guessed maybe two days or more. Other people made noises, most of them horrifying and sad, probably in curtain rooms around him, he just couldn’t see anything beyond the white sheets.

“Ah good.” Lance jumped at the sound of the silky voice, a man with long white hair in a white lab coat coming around the curtain and into his room. “You survived the initial dose.”

Lance’s stomach fell, his hair standing on end as he tried to reconcile being told he’d already been dosed with something on top of the fact that he’d seen this person before, he’d seen the long white hair and the slope of his shoulders. He couldn’t place it at the moment, but he knew he’d seen this person somewhere before. “What do you mean survived?”

“Exactly what you think it means.” The man settled a clipboard onto a table near Lance and went to a sink near by to wash his hands. “You survived the initial dose, most don’t. You look rather wel even, I think you’re going to be a rather promising subject.”

“Subject?” Lance shivered, trying to move himself as he watched the man with white hair pull on a pair of surgical gloves. He towered over Lance now, pulling the stethoscope from around his neck so he could lean down and listen to Lance’s heart beat. Once he had, he scribbled something down on the clipboard and hummed.

“Yes,” he said, “I never thought trying to lure Spider-Man in would result in such a good test subject, but I’m glad we’ve run across you Lance. Two birds with one stone, as they say.”

“What are you trying to do to me?” Lance shifted, struggling until he’d remember the bonds on his arms and chest and that he couldn’t sit up. He wanted to hit this guy, he wanted to get out and tell Shiro he didn’t have to try to save him. Lance couldn’t fight back at all, all he could do was hope Shiro didn’t run head first into a horrible trap.

“Well,” the man’s eyes were cold, but a smile crept across his face. “We are continuing the work of a well respected scientist, one that nearly discovered a way to force humans to mutate and enhance mutations. Though, we’ve had more luck making mutants more powerful than. Too powerful for us to handle.”

Lance frowned, “why would you test on Spidey if you haven’t gotten it under control yet?”

“Much as the way with vaccines, some things are easiest to do when you have patient zero to work with,” the man said, “but I don’t need to explain myself to you. You’re nothing but another subject now. Even if Spider-Man doesn’t actually care enough about you to come looking for you, you’re obviously going to make a fine mutant, or a horrible failure.”

“Fuck off.” Lance jerked against the straps on his arms again. The man just laughed at him, going behind Lance’s bed. There was a small amount of metallic shuffling, and a lot of sounds Lance didn’t like, the faint nose of the man flicking the needle with his figure certainly made Lance’s adrenaline go through the roof.

“Now, now.” The man smiled again, large and sickening, “is that any way to talk to someone who is going to give you the world? Can you imagine having all the powers that Spider-Man does? Or the Hulk’s strength? Or even Captain America’s slowed aging?”

Lance tried to shy away, watching the man draw near him with the needle. He tugged on the straps, but he couldn’t actually stop the man carefully pressing the needle into Lance’s arm. The drug felt like fire in his veins at first, Lance pressing his lips closed and groaning to try to distract himself. When he looked back up at the man, his calm face and his wild eyes, Lance suddenly realized he’d seen him before when Electro had nearly killed him. He must want Spider-Man for the same reason he wanted Electro and Black Cat, whatever that reason was, Lance didn’t want Shiro to get caught.

“Do you often watch your experiments after they’ve gone wrong?” Lance frowned deeply, “I saw you there, when Electro attacked, do you like to remind yourself of how you failed?”

The man paused, setting his jaw as he pulled the needle out of Lance’s arm. “I wouldn’t consider Electro a failure. He led us straight into whatever relationship you share with Spider-Man.”

Lance felt his stomach churn as the man smiled down at him again, setting aside the needle. Everything had started to get hazy, Lance starting to sweat as the drug worked its way through his system. His breathing grew heavy, eyes bleary, joints achey. He just wanted it to stop and it had only been a minute or so since he’d been given it. “He won’t come,” Lance lied, “we made an agreement a long time ago that he wouldn’t come for me.”

Now the man threw his head back and laughed, picking up his clipboard and writing something down. “You can’t possibly think I’ll believe you? He came for Black Cat and he even tried to help Electro.” He clipped his pen to the papers he held and tilted his head at Lance, “Spider-Man is far too guilty, he’ll come after his precious reporter.”

Lance ground his teeth, trying to focus through the pain. His words still came out slurred, “he won’t, he won’t.”

“Get some rest Lance,” the man started to head for the curtains, “the second dose is more likely to kill you than the first. You wouldn’t want to die lying, would you?”

The man laughed again, leaving through the curtains. Lance could do even less now, the fight going out of him as the drugs started to take over. Everything felt red and violet, his vision going through phases where he couldn’t see at all, eventually, he felt his consciousness start to slip, the last bit of his fight hitting him in a rush of panic when he felt he had started to lose control.

“He won’t.”   


* * *

**Chapter 2**

Shiro wobbled on the fire escape, his eyes tired and his body hurting. He couldn’t stop though, not yet, he had a solid lead, the first in a few days and he wasn’t about to let himself lose it. Wade had pointed him a direction, Black Cat sort of gave him an idea, but thank god for Sandman because he sent Shiro down a wave of addicts that had actually been in the treatment center. After a lot of talking and some confusion, Shiro had managed to use their stories to put together a solid list of locations that could hold the treatment center.

“Shiro,” Karen said, “are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe I should call Tony.”

“No,” Shiro said, “It’s fine, I’m fine.”

“It’s been three days, you haven’t slept.” Karen’s voice faded into the background of Shiro’s mind as he swung himself to the next building. She kept pressing him about rest and calling Tony and getting help, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell Tony he’d let himself get too tied to a civilian only to get him kidnapped. He felt stupid and young, he’d felt like this before.

“I’ll be fine.” Shiro took a deep breath and then he carefully dropped himself into the building through a service entrance on the roof. He lowered himself onto the top floor and made his way down, most of what the people had describe involved being underground or on the first floor of a building that seemed otherwise abandoned. Shiro climbed through a vent from the second floor to the first, carefully checking out the first floor, which matched descriptions he had heard, lots of rooms made of sheets, hospital beds, looking like an emergency room.

His heart fluttered, for a moment, he looked over the facility and felt like he might finally be in the right place. He scanned one of the rooms made of sheets, the person in it didn’t look so good, worse, Shiro could see that they were young looking, maybe seventeen or eighteen at the most.

Shiro bit back his innate drive to immediately try to start rescuing whoever he could. He needed to make his way down where the leader supposedly spent their time. Lotor, the person Wade had named as continuing the research of his mother, was the one he needed to target, and if he could get it right, the whole thing would come crumble. Or at least, that was what Wade had thought. It felt odd though, like there should be more people dealing with the patients, but no one was really around, and there were few patients in the first place.

He made it down the duct work to the lower level, peeking through vents and trying to stay as quiet as he could. He realized then that he meant to call Wade in as soon as he’d gotten there, he’d forgotten when he’d realized he was in the right spot, and now he could see people moving down the hallways made of sheets. It seemed like the patients doing better were kept down there, still there weren’t many, and as he made his way towards the distant area that had no sheets around it, he checked every room he passed.

Shiro didn’t see Lance in any of them, in fact, it was like they’d stripped the facility down to a skeleton crew. He guessed there was another side, but when he finally got to a vantage point where he could see the hall better, there wasn’t another row of sheet rooms there. He started to panic, a facility full of people, he might have missed Lance on the floor above, but if he wasn’t there, if Shiro pulled this all down and Lotor or his crew wouldn’t talk, they might never find the second facility if there was one.

“Ah, god!” The voice drew Shiro out of his head instantly, the sound of Lance yelling, “stop, stop! Please, no more.” Shiro was practically scrambling down the vent towards the sound. “I am going to fucking kick your ass the moment I’m out of these goddamn straps.”

Honestly, Shiro was so happy to hear Lance’s voice he wasn’t even mad yet that they had obviously been hurting him. He hit the end of the vent, and he didn’t hesitate to climb his way out. The area that he could see Lance strapped to a table in was still about fifteen feet away, but it was closer than Shiro had been in days. Shiro snapped into action the moment he saw Lotor, long white hair had to be him, and he felt all of the anger and adrenaline flare up in his stomach when he watched Lotor press a button and shock Lance.

Lance screamed, struggling against the leather straps they had him in, his eyes rolling back in his head now as the electricity stopped. He fell back into the bed, panting as Shiro swung his way over to them, his rage hitting probably the maximum it could.

“Oh look,” Lotor said, turning to look up at Shiro as he sailed towards him. It was too easy, and as Lotor turned towards him, nonchalant and almost bored. “You finally made it.”

Shiro redirected right away, and he was glad he did, because Lotor immediately drew some kind of crazy laser sword. He passed near Lance, watching as Lance seemed to realize what was happening, and for a moment, he could see the sinking fear in Lance’s eyes.

“Leave!” Lance struggled and Shiro couldn’t believe he actually had it together enough to talk already. Shiro wasn’t about to take his advice though, there was no way at this point he was leaving without Lance. “Leave right now!”

Lotor smirked, his sword at the ready as Shiro redirected himself. “Karen, I need the steel webs.”

“Coming up!” Karen quickly changed her locking mode, following Lotor as he moved around Lance’s table.

“Come here Spider-Man, you’re exactly who I’ve been waiting for,” Lotor said. Shiro didn’t even think about it, swinging towards Lotor again, and making an attempt to web-up his sword. Lotor, for a moment, seemed thrown off when the web didn’t cut on the blade, yanking the sword back to try to remove it from the web. “How annoying, just before a move is the worst time to have visitors.”

Shiro took the moment to swing at Lotor, his body didn’t feel tired now, all of the adrenaline and anger making it far easier to try to punch hard. Lotor dodged though, turning his sword and twisting the handle so it burned brightly for a moment. Whatever it did, it was just enough to dissolve the webs Shiro had on the blade.

“Spidey, listen to me, _leave_.” Lance yelled, “leave now, this is a trap.”

Shiro paused just long enough to look back at Lance, feeling Lotor grab him and yank Shiro closer by the arm. He couldn’t deal with what Lance was trying to tell him for now, he had to focus on the fight, because if he didn’t they’d be in a whole lot of trouble. Once he was in close, he took another shot at Lotor’s ribs, landing a punch only to get thrown back by Lotor shoulder checking him.

“You really should have listened to your friend you know.” Lotor’s eyes started to glow, and the look on his face made Shiro momentarily quiver with fear. He was glad he had a mask on so that Lotor wouldn’t see him falter. He knew better than to stay on the ground, webbing up and flying into the air because he knew that was safest. “Because what you don’t know Spidey…”

Shiro swung himself at Lotor again, watching his band of mercenaries move in closer to them. He felt everything in his chest well up, watching as Lotor readied his sword again. “Fuck off!” Shiro yelled, and in the next second, he saw the glint of Lotor’s sword as he threw it.

“... is that I don’t need you in one piece to be my test subject.” Lotor grinned, and with a flash of white hot heat, Shiro was falling to the ground, blood pooling in his suit as he heard Karen frantically reading out damage reports.

He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, his eyes swimming for a moment until he looked down at the stump he had left of an arm. Lance was screaming at the top of his lungs and struggling against the straps that held him to the bed. Shiro felt his vision start to blur, looking over at his arm lying lifeless on the ground a ways away from him.

His eyes followed a line up Lotor’s legs to his face, watching him stand over him with a smug look on his face. As Lance screamed in the background, Shiro felt himself start to go under. His head rushing and then everything went completely black.

* * *

Lance’s heart might have stopped, he really wasn’t sure, but he felt like everything stopped as he watched Shiro crumble on the floor in a pool of his own blood. His arms strained against the leather straps holding him, he couldn’t help, he couldn’t scream and he couldn’t think straight anymore.

He watched Shiro’s hand start to loosen, and with a sickening thud, Shiro’s severed arm fell to the ground, the suit on it wet and torn at the edges. Lotor, laughing, powered off the laser sword he was holding and walked over to Shiro, kneeling down to grab at Shiro’s mask. Lance felt something snap, his teeth grinding down into each other as he flung his arm forward hearing a loud snap which sounded like a belt hitting skin, and as he squeezed his hand into a fist in front of his face, watching his fingers move and examining the area where his wrist had been rubbed raw by the leather. He could probably do it again. It took a moment, but then he felt another snap, the leather falling down, broken at the end where he’d pulled it from the metal fasteners.

Lance stopped thinking about it, and before he knew it, he had torn himself straight out of the straps that held him to the bed. He ripped off the wires from the electric shock machine and yanked the IV from his arm as carefully as he could. Lotor hadn’t quite noticed yet, trying to find a way to take Shiro’s mask off after he’d rolled him over, absentmindedly talking over his shoulder, “did you knock your vitals off again?”

“Do _not_ touch him.” He took a step off the bed, his feet leading him towards Lotor faster than he had ever moved in his life. Lotor really only looked up once Lance was already standing over him, taking one shot at his face and knocking Lotor back just far enough that Lance could be between Shiro and Lotor. He felt Shiro’s blood on his bare feet, and he shivered with rage as Lotor righted himself.

Lotor, despite his resolve up until this point, looked shaken, but then a terrible smile came over his face. “I did it, you mutated.”

Lance didn’t feel like listening to him, swiping the nearest heavy object he could and throwing it at Lotor. He missed, but it gave him just enough time to take another swing at him, catching his jaw and making Lotor falter briefly.

“Okay, enough playing around.I can’t have you ruining my experiment.” Lotor threw his head back, getting his hair out of his face so he could look at Lance again. Lance set himself in front of Shiro, standing strong as he watched Lotor activate the sword again, and he realized that maybe he hadn’t thought this through quite enough. Lotor smirked, catching onto Lance’s anxiety and lunging for him, sword out.

Lance managed to dodge, jumping further than he expected, catching the wall. For a moment, he feared Lotor going for Shiro, but he seemed almost unhinged. He didn’t even look at Shiro on the ground, instead he ran at Lance again, full speed. In his panic, Lance didn’t think twice about skittering up the wall as he’d seen Shiro do so many times before, and to his surprise, he stuck and he climbed right up the wall like Spidey always did.

Lotor grunted, looking up at Lance and now he turned on Shiro, “I don’t need much of him to test what I need to test.” He held his sword up, aiming for Shiro’s other arm.

“I told you not to touch him.” Lance jumped clear off the wall, landing next to Shiro’s severed arm with a bit of a wobble and as Lotor turned back on Lance, he managed to carefully take what was left of the Spidey suit off Shiro’s arm, slipping it on to his own. It reacted quickly, tightening around his arm and conforming to its shape.

He didn’t really have time to think about it, Lotor running at him full speed again. Honestly, Lance couldn’t believe Lotor was so easy to distract, and as he shot the web at him, he really couldn’t believe he managed to actually hit Lotor’s face. Lance followed it quickly by shooting at his chest and arm, missing this time and instead getting Lotor’s free hand instead of the one with the sword.

“That’s it,” Lotor took a wild breath, his breathing breaking and popping in way that Lance certainly didn’t like. He seemed to grow in size, his eyes glowing as his muscles contracted and spread. Lotor growled like an animal, his teeth growing sharper and his hair getting ragged. “I will have you both, I will complete the serum, I will have my army.”

Lance took a step back, his arm with the web still out, but he didn’t have time to react, now, instead, he felt the fist hit his chest and he heard the sword clatter to the floor. Lotor’s hand went around his throat, staring at Lance through the webs on his face. “Holy shit,” Lance mumbled, and then Lotor lifted him off the ground.

His breathing broke and he struggled, trying to kick, but Lotor’s arms had grown too long, and now Lance couldn’t quite reach. He started to go black, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find his breath.

“That’s it, go back to sleep.” Lotor’s voice was low and rough, squeezing down on Lance’s neck. Lance could hear noise coming from above them, he couldn’t place it, but it was fairly loud as he tried to kick again. His vision tunneled, and as he pawed at Lotor’s hands, he saw the glint of the laser sword behind the hulking figure that Lotor now was.

It hit Lotor in the middle of the back, piercing him straight through as the noise above them grew louder and louder. Lotor dropped Lance, and with a rough cough, Lance found himself on the ground, the world coming back into perspective as he watched Shiro standing, one arm up like he’d just thrown something, and the other one cut off in an awful, jagged stump.

“I think, you are the first person, I have _ever_ wanted to kill.” Shiro spat the words out, and then, before either of them could really do anything about it, Lotor pulled the sword from his back, and threw it at Shiro.

“No!” Lance webbed Lotor again, tugging him back, and watched as the sword spun in the air, catching Shiro’s head with the hilt. Shiro dropped like a rock again, his limbs falling out as he landed on his back this time, with a similar horrible noise as the first time. Lotor tore the web off quickly, turning on Lance again, his eyes looking more wild than they had before.

Blood poured from his chest, his hair sticking in places against his skin as Lance scampered back, shooting another web at him. He tugged on it, pulling Lotor off to one side, enough that Lance could scramble around him. Once he’d managed to get there though, he wasn’t really sure what to do, getting between Shiro and Lotor again when something came down through the ceiling with a crash.

At that point, all of Lance’s fight turned into flight, and he ran straight for Shiro, trying to pick him up and scramble away from Lotor and whatever the hell else they had to deal with now. He pulled Shiro under the bed with him, trying to look around for anything he could use to make a tourniquet. Shiro was losing so much blood, there was so much blood all over Lance.

He clung to Shiro wrapping his arms around the middle as he heard what sounded like an explosion, and Lance threw the hand with the web shooter on it out. All he could do was stay there and wait, his arm out as he watched a blue beam hit Lotor full force, watching his skin singe and his hair burn away before he landed on the ground, face first and unmoving.

Lance swallowed hard, his hand up still as he readied himself for whatever was coming. He cradled Shiro’s head against his shoulder, holding onto him hard. He watched a glowing blue light make its way through the dust from the ceiling which was now partially caved in.

“Kid?” Lance could hear a rather robotic sounding voice coming from the direction of the light, “Kid are you hear?”

His whole body shook, his teeth chattering as he felt a sudden chill run down his spine. He could feel sweat pouring down his face now, watching the dust settle and the shape of a suit he recognized form in front of him. He seemed to see Lance at the same time, flying towards them quickly as all the adrenaline drained into his feet.

Lance felt woozy all of the sudden, and as he watched Iron Man land on the ground in front of him. “Please help Shiro,” Lance said, his voice felt weak, but it was enough to snap Iron Man’s attention directly to them, and as he started to talk, Lance’s vision started to swim.

“How do you know his name?” He asked, voice robotic but tinged with concern and confusion. Lance couldn’t respond, watching Iron Man at the end of the tunnel as the black started to take over completely. His consciousness left him slowly this time, sort of aware of the sound of people talking, and someone picking Shiro up and then someone else moving him. The surface under him was soft, and as he melted into the feeling, he felt himself completely pass out.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Lance roused in yet another hospital bed, his eyes aching and his back sore. He felt like he hadn’t moved in a few days, stiff and tired until it him him that he was in a hospital bed. Lance shot up, his eyes wide as he checked himself and his bed for straps. When he found nothing, and realized the bed was actually much more advanced than the ones he’d been in with Lotor. His breathing slowed, the adrenaline that came with the fear settled back into his stomach and he started to become more aware of the rest of the room, including the other person lying in a bed just a few feet away.

“Lance?” Shiro’s voice sounded normal, completely normal, so normal it kind of made Lance temporarily forget everything that had happened in the past few days. Lance felt himself move before he realized he’d told his legs to go, he found quickly that his legs were wrapped in something, airbags that inflated and let the air out every so often. He pried his legs out, first his left and then his right, being careful not to break anything before he stepped down off his bed in an easy motion. “Wait, wait, don’t get out of the bed.”

Lance’s legs felt odd for a moment, and then he was able to correct them, stepping over the small space and few wires that were between him and Shiro. He half-fell into Shiro’s bed, tripping over something he hadn’t seen in his excitement.

“You’re okay!” Lance’s voice cracked, tears falling down his face as he pawed at Shiro’s chest. Shiro, desperately trying to help hold Lance up with one hand, nodded and laughed quietly. Lance climbed part way into Shiro’s bed easily, earning him a sweet smile and Shiro stopped trying to hold him up, running his hand over Lance’s cheek and letting Lance press a kiss to his lips.

“Yes, I’m okay thanks to you,” Shiro said, waving at some orderlies who were now standing in the doorway. Lance had pulled off the machine monitoring his vitals by mistake. The nurses seemed to let it go easily, scampering off in different directions as Lance took stock of Shiro. Shiro’s right arm was still gone, the stump banaged over with thick, white gauze. He didn’t let Lance look for long, turning his head, “it’s fine, I’m fine.”

“Your arm,” Lance mumbled, shifting himself to lay close to Shiro as he made room for Lance in the bed. Lance let Shiro hug his shoulders tightly, his eyes turning towards the stump again, he couldn’t help it.

“I promise, I’m fine,” Shiro said turning Lance’s head again. Lance shook his head quickly.

“But, your webs, Spider-Man,” Lance said, “New York needs you.”

Shiro softened, his shoulders slumping slightly, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this Lance. That I was Spider-Man.”

Lance clicked his teeth nervously and shifted himself to look at Shiro more directly, “I’ve known for a while.”

Shiro didn’t seem to process it, his eyes losing focus on Lance’s face and then he shook his head slightly, “you what?”

“I’ve know for a while.” Lance felt a little guilty now, shifting himself and looking around, “do you have your phone?”

Shiro, who still looked decidedly confused, picked up his phone from a besides table behind Lance and handed it to him, the charm still on it. Lance smiled at it a bit, taking it from Shiro’s hands and turning the charm towards Shiro. “I gave this to Spidey,” Lance said, “because I had the weirdest gut feeling that the two of you were the same person. I lined the outside of the charm with a marker so I would know that it was the same one.”

“Oh my god,” Shiro mumbled, taking the charm back from Lance. “I didn’t even notice.”

Lance shook his head, “sorry.”

Shiro quickly looked back at Lance, sheepish almost, “no, no. It’s fine, I was, I had been trying to find a way to explain myself. Especially after that night we spent together when you didn’t know it was me. I was afraid you’d be mad.”

“I’m not mad, I knew what I was signing up for that night, anyone could have been under that mask.” Lance chuckled, and he leaned into Shiro’s chest, “I’m glad it turned out to be you though. I love you Shiro.”

“I’m glad you aren’t mad,” Shiro mumbled, setting his head on top of Lance’s and his chest puffing up like it did when he was excited, “I love you too Lance.”

They sat still there for a while, just letting the quiet wash over them as they held onto each other. Eventually, when enough time had passed, Shiro said, “they’re building me a new arm.”

“What?” Lance sat up to look at Shiro again, and then his stump. Shiro nodded, a small smile on his face.

“Uh, Tony, he knew I always liked Bucky’s arm.” Shiro started to explain, and then when Lance stared back at him like he didn’t know what was going on, Shiro changed what he was saying, “Tony Stark, Iron Man, and Bucky Barnes, you know, the Winter Soldier.”

“Isn’t he a war criminal?” Lance blinked and Shiro kind of grimaced.

“Uh, well, sort of? It’s a really complicated situation, anyway he has a metal arm.” Shiro’s voice ticked up like he was trying to dodge the rest of that explanation, so Lance let it be for now. “Tony is going to make me one. It’ll probably look a bit more like he made it though, he puts his touch on everything he does.”

Lance nodded slightly, and then he paused, “wait so, Iron Man, is he the one that showed up? To save us?”

Shiro tilted his head at Lance, “how much do you remember?”

“Well, it’s largely a big blank until you threw the sword through Lotor? And then I kind of remember the noise of someone breaking the ceiling….” Lance rubbed the back of his neck and tried to think about it more. “No, that’s really about it. I don’t even remember you getting me out.”

“I, uh,” Shiro glanced at the wall a bit, “I didn’t get you out.”

“Who undid the straps then?” Lance asked, and Shiro kind of shook his head.

“From the looks of things, you tore through them,” Shiro said and then he glanced at the wall again, “Lance, I saw you go toe to toe with Lotor like you were equally matched.”

Lance shook his head slightly, trying to think it over, and as he started to pull some memories together, stringing them into something more cohesive, he still couldn’t place exactly what had happened. They were interrupted by a few doctors though, one of them asking Lance to get back into his own bed and after some back and forth, they reattached the vitals machine and let Lance stay in Shiro’s bed.

After that, they slept a while, being told that they should rest more. Lance apparently had been temporarily placed in a medically induced coma, they didn’t say why though. He found quickly that normal sleep felt much better than the coma sleeping.

* * *

Shiro woke with the weight of Lance on his chest and his arm sore and achy. It wasn’t bothering him too much, luckily he usually healed fast, but as he woke he felt the need to wiggle and shift slightly. Lance shifted and woke as soon as Shiro moved too much, rubbing at his eyes and yawning. He was pretty certain that another day had passed sleeping, and now, late at night they were mostly alone in the medical wing of the Avenger’s facility.

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbled. Lance shook his head.

“It’s fine, I’m sure you must be stiff with me laying on you,” Lance said and moved so they could each lay on their sides instead and face each other. Shiro did appreciate the new position, though he wanted Lance closer to him, he never really wanted to risk Lance getting away from him ever again.

“It was fine,” Shiro said, “Lance, I think there’s something I should tell you. Now, when no one else is around.”

Lance looked worried, tilting his head to one side, fear settling into his eyes in a way Shiro had never seen, “what is it?”

Shiro bit his lip and looked Lance over again quickly, “I think, whatever Lotor was doing, he was trying to make another Spider-Man. Wade, uh, Deadpool said he was trying to recreate my mutation, the spider that mutated me was created by his mother, but it’s dead now and no one knows where she is.”

“What does that mean?” Lance asked. He looked doe eyed and interested, and Shiro suddenly felt more worried than ever.

“It means I think he succeeded,” Shiro said, “only one test subject was doing well from what Tony told me. And the way he told me, I know he was talking about you, the rest are in the ICU and they’re still trying to stabilize them.”

Lance blinked, and took a few moments, contemplating himself, “so I have a memory, of sticking to the wall like I’ve seen you do.”

Shiro nodded, “I saw you do that.”

“So, I have,” Lance’s voice fell low, “I have all the same powers you do?”

“I think you might.”

Lance nodded slightly, “okay, okay, okay, uh, I mean. That’s not the worst thing? Why are you, being so cagey?”

Shiro open and closed his mouth and then he shifted, sitting up entirely. “Being a superhero, it’s one of those things, I’ve been one since I was so young, too young, and I think everyone here knows why that shouldn’t happen again.”

Lance sat up, facing Shiro as he sat cross-legged on the bed. “What do you mean?”

“A lot of bad things have happened to me, because I was a Spider-Man,” Shiro said, “do you remember Thanos?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, “you were integral to stopping him weren’t you? You and Iron Man.”

Shiro felt his stomach pit out when Lance said it, and he took a deep breath. “We were integral to stopping him the second time,” Shiro said, “I’ve never really told anybody this, but I remember the first time, before Doctor Strange fixed it. The first time, Thanos won, he eliminated half of the world’s population and I was. I have a clear memory of fading out of existence.”

Lance’s face looked hard now, his jaw locked and his eyes serious. The understand came over him, clear as day, and Shiro chuckled awkwardly. It was probably inappropriate, but Lance didn’t seem to notice.

“I remember exactly how Tony looked as he tried to hold onto me and tell me it was going to be okay,” Shiro said and shook his head. He felt crazy talking about it, he had felt crazy thinking about it since he got back after defeating Thanos. “I’m not even sure if Tony remembers. Lance, doing this, a lot of people are going to pressure you to try.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t be doing it if people weren’t telling you to?” Lance’s voice sounded tight.

Shiro shook his head, “no, I just. I wanted to give you the chance to chose to hide it. I wound up all over Youtube, I wasn’t careful, I’m lucky Tony took me in or I think things might have been much worse than they were.”

Lance nodded, and he furrowed his brow, “this is even if I have any powers at all.”

“You have powers Lance, I.” He glanced at the wall, “try to climb the wall.”

“Okay,” Lance said, and he carefully got out of the bed, trying not to knock off the vitals clip on his finger before he set one foot on the wall next to Shiro’s bed. He took a step, got his next foot up and crawled clean up to the ceiling. Honestly, Shiro had to say he was kind of a natural at it, Shiro was much more fuddly when he’d first started out. “Okay, uhm, I think you were right. How do I get down?”

Shiro chuckled again, “just climb the way you went up.”

“Right,” Lance said, and looked down at Shiro, “how did you get used to the heights?”

Shiro shrugged his shoulders and reached for Lance when he chose to step directly into the bed from the wall. “I just did, I fell a lot, luckily mostly from short buildings.”

“Well,” Lance said, “I guess it’s something I’ll have to work on.”

“Are you sure about that?” Shiro asked, but Lance smiled at him.

“Shiro,” Lance said, “I have the chance to go out there every night and try to protect people, but most of all, I can finally actually back you up without worrying I’m going to die. At least, i could worry a little less, about me, and about you.”

Shiro frowned, thinking it over for a moment, “you would want to work together?”

“Of course,” Lance said, “who could teach me better than you?”

Shiro took a deep breath, smiling as he pulled Lance in for a kiss, “you’ve known for months about me, have you been worried all that time?”

Lance laughed, “I worried about Spidey _before_ I know you were him. I worried even more once we started dating and I knew.”

“Well,” Shiro said, glancing out at the hallway, “we are at the Avengers facility, and I’m going to need to spend some time getting my arm fixed.”

Lance’s eyes blew up like balloons, glancing around the room and then back at Shiro, “we’re in the Avenger’s facility? The top secret one?”

“Yeah.” Shiro laughed, “did you really think they’d bring Spider-Man to any old hospital?”

“Well, no,” Lance said, “but I thought we were at a hospital, not _the_ Avengers facility.”

Shiro chuckled, pulling Lance close again, “if they ever let us leave, I can show you my room.”

“You have a room here?” Lance asked, and then they rolled into a long conversation, chatting until the two of them were so tired they had to sleep again.

Shiro had the feeling that things were about to get a bit easier for him. While he was still worried about Lance, he couldn’t help but feel like all of this was for the better. Having Lance at his side would be worth it. He watched Lance’s sleeping face for a while, wiggling his stump every now and again as he tried to reach for him, forgetting that he no longer could with his right arm. Shiro eventually settled on scooting closer to press their legs together, letting Lance eventually roll back onto his chest. He had a feeling that he and Lance might need new jobs, but they had each other and that was all that mattered.


End file.
